Windows 8.1 product key deactivation

[wtindall100]

Hi, I thought it would be cool to try installing Ubuntu GNOME on an old mac which also happens to be running Windows 8.1 Pro. Everything went well, with both OSX and Linux running fine but when I eventually attempted to boot into windows I got a 'Missing operating system' error. Disk Utility then said my Windows partition was empty so I'm assuming I went wrong somewhere and it erased my partition. This is probably a stupid question but is there any way to deactivate my windows product key without access to the OS so that I can re-install it? Or am I possibly just missing something in disk utility?

Thanks!

[Jade]

You should be able to just reinstall it with the key since it's the same hardware. If not, you can do the call activation and you'll be able to activate within minutes. (and without actually talking to anybody.)