Hidden Product Key

[Envayne]

A friend recently bought a Toshiba Satellite (l75d-a7283) which comes pre-installed with windows 8. Either way she didn't like it and asked me to wipe the drive and install Win 7 for her, which I did. After getting 7 installed I found it almost impossible to get all the drivers from Toshiba as they refuse to show anything other than Win8 drivers on their site. So we decided to revert back to Win8 and just shell/skin everything.

Here is where the problems began. I "assumed" the product key would be listed on a sticker on the bottom of the laptop like every other laptop I've worked on in the past. It wasn't. Not thinking ahead to get the product key from the control panel, and not being able to read it off a sticker meant that all I could do was use my backup of Win 8 on her system hoping it would pick up the original key from Bios. It didn't.

If I order the recovery disk from Toshiba would it have better luck?

 

[clutchc]

Go back to Win7 and let it find as many drivers as it can over several days via its Windows Update. If you have any devices that still don't work, search out the manufacturer's website for their drivers. What drivers were missing when you did the Win7 install before?

Another option would be to contact Toshiba with the problem. Or the retailer you/she bought the laptop from. Is this where you went for Toshiba support: http://support.toshiba.com/drivers
Most Win8 drivers will work for Win7. If not, the installation pgm will inform you as such.

 

[Envayne]

I was missing quite a few drivers. Even the Ethernet driver was a pain to install. The install would run then fail over and over. Eventually I managed to get that to work by manually installing it and letting windows update run. I still had quite a few missing drivers so I went back to Win 8 and found all the drivers from Toshiba's site very easily.

My main question was if I order the recovery disk from Toshiba or use a backup created from Windows 8 will it find the product key stored in Bios even though I wiped everything from the hard drive during format?

 

[clutchc]

I was missing quite a few drivers. Even the Ethernet driver was a pain to install. The install would run then fail over and over. Eventually I managed to get that to work by manually installing it and letting windows update run. I still had quite a few missing drivers so I went back to Win 8 and found all the drivers from Toshiba's site very easily.

My main question was if I order the recovery disk from Toshiba or use a backup created from Windows 8 will it find the product key stored in Bios even though I wiped everything from the hard drive during format?

I can't answer that last question decisively. That's why I suggested contacting Toshiba. That is what the warranty is for. But Win7 and Win8 drivers should not be that hard to get. After the Win install run CCleaner to clean up any junk files and registry errors left behind. Same after updates. That may be hampering your driver install. https://www.piriform.com/ccleaner

 

[Envayne]

Thanks for the replies, I install ccleaner on every computer already. The problem is when you go to toshibas support site for drivers and change the filter to anything below Windows 8, no drivers show up whatsoever. Win-update could only find so many even after hours of rechecking.