Question about fixing old dell laptop windows 8

[billabeasta]

Hey Everyone,

 

So i have this super old dell laptop, years ago took fall damage, and died. I actually started messing around with it, cause I was bored, and I did the dumb thing and took apart the hard drive cause I figured, hey its broken, worst case scenario I break it more. Doing that started the click of death, opened it back up, and big scratch all around the disk (before there was no scratch). But then i took apart the whole thing trying to find a windows key, also because i was bored, didn't have one but when i put it back together it posted for the first time in years. The hard drive is definitely dead at this point, which is 99% likely my own fault. But i was wondering if I could get a new hard drive to put in there, and install windows 8 would there be a way to use the product key the system came with? I read a little online it is in the bios but I have no idea how to access it. Or would it just be as easy as slapping a new hdd in there, installing windows 8 and then it just automatically recognizes it? Any help would be greatly appreciated! I am mainly looking to do it as a cheap option to give my mom as something that would work for computer purposes. Also side note, I had another hdd from my current laptop that i swapped out for an ssd, and for the sheer I'm here now why not try it, i put that in the old laptop (its a windows 10 drive btw) and that managed to boot perfectly fine and it ran. It was slow as all hell but it ran and everything worked right. Which I thought was cool and honestly did not expect to work. It was also from my hp laptop to the old dell laptop.

[aisle9]

Windows 8 burns its license into the UEFI, so as long as the motherboard hasn't changed you should be able to install and go. You can also upgrade to 10 using that license after installing 8.

[billabeasta]

10 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Windows 8 burns its license into the UEFI, so as long as the motherboard hasn't changed you should be able to install and go. You can also upgrade to 10 using that license after installing 8.

That is actually really awesome to hear thanks!!

[just that pc guy]

18 minutes ago, aisle9 said:

Windows 8 burns its license into the UEFI, so as long as the motherboard hasn't changed you should be able to install and go. You can also upgrade to 10 using that license after installing 8.

huh i actually didnt know that and i mostly work with old dell pcs