Windows 10 re-install
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My refurbished Dell pc stopped running last week. I did a reboot and chose Restore trying to get the pc recovered. I did not know Restore wiped out everything on the PC. When I got it to boot up it came up with W7 as the operating system. The PC had W10 on it when I purchased it. I cannot get the W10 back on the PC. I used the NEW code on the cover to try and get MS to recognize the unit but it comes back as not recognized. How do I get W10 back on my machine without having to buy more licenses?? Thanks.
Answers
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Hello @mixer316, welcome to the Micro Center Community!
Have you gone to Microsoft's webpage for downloading Windows 10? Once you download the tool, you will want to run the download. Then you want to select the option to upgrade this PC, it should begin installing Windows 10 over your Windows 7. Assuming your Windows 10 was activated prior to resetting it, Windows 10 should be able to pick the License Key from the motherboard and activate.
If not, you said this was a refurbished system? Do you still have the Refurbished License Key sticker? You may need to enter that code again.
If that did not work, the last thing to try before contacting Microsoft would be clicking on the Troubleshoot option under Settings > Activation tabs. -
I did download the MS tool. I loaded it onto a USB drive and changed the boot option to have the unit boot from the drive. I walked it through until it asked for the key. I entered the key and it kicked back not recognized. Thanks for the response nevertheless.
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There should be an option to skip the License Key box. There should be an option along the lines of "I Don't have a Product Key" that you can select and skip past that.
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I did that and it kicked me back to square one with no options. Thanks.
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It should not kick you back to square one. Windows 10 will let you install and run without a license. Lets go through it one more time. Boot to the disk, follow the installer, skip activation. It'll say "Do this Later" at the bottom. If you don't have any data on the system, it's best to do a clean install. Choose custom and delete the existing partitions from your main drive and install clean. If you have a secondary drive or a backup, be careful not to delete data from these drives. Once you're done, just choose next to start the install.
Here's a guide: https://www.microcenter.com/tech_center/article/11085/how-to-perform-a-clean-installation-of-windows-10
Now, if you have started reinstalling software and transferring data. You can use the media tool from inside windows 7 an do an in place upgrade as well. For this just run the setup.exe from the media creation till in windows and choose the default upgrade option.
If you want to PM one of us the key or text it to us at 614-850-3670 we can verify the key is correct and a valid 10 key.
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