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Question

Formatted Hard drive

Apr 4, 2018 10:14PM PDT

I have just dine something stupid. I had issues with my old laptop and another forum suggested I reformat my hard drive. in the process I have deleted my Windows files. Plus I didn't create a recovery USB.
I only have some computer knowledge so I went into my Bios but can seem to be able to access the hidden recovery disk partition. Asus recommended pressing f9 on boot up but it didn't work ( maybe as I have updated to Win10??)
Is there a way of reinstalling Windows, I don't have an optical drive. and the ISO file from Microsoft isn't downloading as I get a message that my Windows was preinstalled.
Any help is greatly appreciated

Discussion is locked

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Answer
Re: formatted
Apr 5, 2018 1:07AM PDT

If the standard factory restore doesn't work anymore, indeed you have to reinstall Windows.

Since you can make that bootable USB stick for any machine on any other machine, it seems you do something wrong. Try again on https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10 and choose the option to "use the tool to create installation media to install Windows 10 on a different PC".

It's a strange message, by the way, because if you formatted, there is no preinstalled Windows anymore, so it can't be detected,

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Formatted
Apr 5, 2018 4:23AM PDT

Thank you for the reply. I didn't think I could use a Win10 as my licence is for Win7. I'll give it a try and see. It's mainly the issue of my Windows being preinstalled so my licence key would not be accepted. I didn't think of the create media option so it would bypass that part. Awesome thanks
Fingers crossed

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When you upgraded to Windows 10 a
Apr 5, 2018 4:58AM PDT

digital entitlement was created which is a new way that MS validates Windows 10. So if you upgraded to Windows 10 your Windows 7 was deemed valid. So now MS has stored your information on their server and all you need to do is download WIndows 10 and do a clean install.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

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Formatted
Apr 5, 2018 4:58PM PDT

Thank sooooo much orlbuckeye. That was the piece of info I was looking for. I was really not looking forward to going back in time to Win7. A clean install will be like a shot of vitamins for my poor old lappy.❤