Windows 7 OEM Activation

[Craigape]

Hey, new to the forums, did my research and came up dry. I'm hopeful a tech wizard here might be able to give me the best answer, even if it's a definitive "no."

 

I had an HP laptop with a dead hard drive. I don't have the original Windows 7 Pro install disc, but I do have the OEM product key, so I downloaded a Windows 7 image online and got that installed on a new drive. Of course, my OEM key cannot activate it. I still have the old hard drive and can recover Windows files, or even the recovery partition, from it, but from my research this didn't seem like it would help and I can't guarantee the integrity of these files regardless. I know you can buy HP Windows 7 installation discs for like $8, but in my scenario is this the only option, and more importantly would this even work? I've tried quite a bit so far, but am open to any ideas and glad to answer any questions.

[Silentprototipe]

Honestly your out of luck. Windows 7 ISO's wont work with OEM keys unless its from an OEM ISO. Unless you can somehow manage to access the dead HDD and clone it to the new one you are out of luck 

[porina]

To activate a Win7 OEM system there needs to be 3 components: One is included in the hardware (bios), one is the Windows key, and one is the OEM key/certificate file. If all 3 are present, Windows will self activate. You need to extract the keyfile. It isn't as simple as copying a file though as it is stored in some database in Windows. Not sure it'll be easy if the other disk isn't bootable any more.

 

Ooh, in a quick search I found this:http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/m/microsoft_os/20443565

The ZIP package seems to include other OEM including HP, so not limited to Dell. Use at your own risk, I haven't used it, but it looks like the missing part to convert a generic Windows install to an OEM activated one, in conjunction with the hardware and key.

[Craigape]

12 minutes ago, silentprototipe said:

Honestly your out of luck. Windows 7 ISO's wont work with OEM keys unless its from an OEM ISO. Unless you can somehow manage to access the dead HDD and clone it to the new one you are out of luck 

I'll pursue cloning and report back. If I have no success there, do you know if any old HP Windows 7 Pro installation disc would get me back up and running? Are there any concerns down that route?

[laughingtnt]

Personally I'd try to get the files off the dead HDD somehow (Idk how since you said it was dead but u could get files off) but other than that I wouldn't know about the HP install disk I'd probably contact HP to get details about it.

[Craigape]

10 minutes ago, porina said:

To activate a Win7 OEM system there needs to be 3 components: One is included in the hardware (bios), one is the Windows key, and one is the OEM key/certificate file. If all 3 are present, Windows will self activate. You need to extract the keyfile. It isn't as simple as copying a file though as it is stored in some database in Windows. Not sure it'll be easy if the other disk isn't bootable any more.

 

Ooh, in a quick search I found this:http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/software-os/m/microsoft_os/20443565

The ZIP package seems to include other OEM including HP, so not limited to Dell. Use at your own risk, I haven't used it, but it looks like the missing part to convert a generic Windows install to an OEM activated one, in conjunction with the hardware and key.

Thanks, I'll give it a shot after the first suggestion since I don't have anything sensitive on this drive. I'll report back with any and all successes or failures, in case anyone stumbles on this with the same problem.