Messed up win 10 install. Help please

corglass

OK, Long story short.

Had an OEM version of Win 7 HomePremium installed on my Toshiba laptop. Decided to upgrade to Win10 so before wiping hard drive i jotted down the Win77 Product Key from My Computer. I wiped both the main drive and the backup partition (silly - I know) before doing a clean USB based install of Win10. The installation went perfectly, but I now must activate my installation.

As I did not have the Win10 free upgrade in my Win7 taskbar before removing the old OS, my hardware is not associated with a genuine Win7 installation. I contacted MS support who suggested I revert to Win7, install all updates, register for Win10 update then wipe drive and install Win10. This time round my hardware would be recognized and my installation validated.

Now for the messy bit, as I wiped the Win7 restoration partition (thinking I'd never need it again), I cannot install a legitimate Win7 installation. I can get a USB ISO from the MS website but the product key I kept from earlier won't work. Apparently I must use the long version of this key found on the sticker on my laptop which is now illegible.

So I've gone from legit Win7 to non activated Win10 where I'm trapped. Any help please?

ED E

Install a Toshiba W7 ISO, then itll activate. Then do an UPGRADE install not a clean one.

corglass

I'll still need a win7 product key if I use a "Toshiba W7 iso"?

I don't have a disk so I'll need to download one. I'll then be asked for a product key which I don't have

.G.

Skip the product key part when you are asked. Your product key is likely embedded in the bios somewhere. Any Windows 7 Home Premium ISO will do. Often once the OS is loaded it activates itself automatically. Once you are back on an activated version of windows 7 you must upgrade from inside Windows 7 to Windows 10. Just open the W10 ISO and run the setup file from your W7 desktop and complete the upgrade. That will activate your windows 10 key and then you can do a clean install, again skipping the step where you enter the product key.

If windows 7 doesn't activate you really are screwed cos you don't have the product key. nothing you can do but buy another one, best bet is to get one from here

You can get the ISO's from that page too.

levitronix

try this line in CMD as admin

powershell "(Get-WmiObject -query 'select * from SoftwareLicensingService') .OA3xOriginalProductKey"

lulu1

I am about to install win 10 It says to expect a 10 second prepare time

I let this run for at least 30 mins still nothing happening

Any advice