my hard drive failed on my toshiba satellite laptop, how do i install win8 on the new hard drive without any cds

[meatpie15]

my hard drive failed on my toshiba satellite laptop, how do i install win8 on the new hard drive without any cds

 

[Darkbreeze]

Do you have a product key or was your operating system registered under a Microsoft Live account?

 

[meatpie15]

Hi and thanks for your response,its a toshiba satellite bought pre installed with win 8, theres no win 8 product key as im told its embedded on the motherboard.

And i cannot find my recovery disks...

 

[Darkbreeze]

You can create windows 8 media here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media

 

[meatpie15]

Yep thats great ive got that thanks, but will it prompt me during installation for a licence key, as i dont have one you see, its embedded in hardware somewhere...so although i have a genuine version of win 8 i do not have a licence key, no stickers anywhere, im told this is the norm with machines shipped with win 8

 

[Darkbreeze]

If you are prompted for a key, which you shouldn't be, just click skip and if you're bios hardware string is already registered with the Microsoft activation servers (Which is how it works. There is no embedded activation. There is simply the Microsoft servers already registering your BIOS ID string, if in fact it is)
then you should be fine and the system will verify your activation automatically once the systems connects to the activation servers after installation.

 

[meatpie15]

Hi and thanks for your help, thats great i didnt want to buy a new hard drive and then run into problems because of the licence key issue..a shop locally to me wants £90 to install a 500gb drive and get win 8 running again, i'd much rather try and resolve it myself..

Can you forsee any other problems i may encounter..

 

[Darkbreeze]

Not in particular.