A friend has a problem and I am running out of ideas for helping him. He has a newer laptop with windows 8 injected into bios. His hard drive locked up completely and he needs to start from square one. The problem is that when trying to install the windows 8 that the machine is authorized for according to the sticker on the back it is not taking the injected product number and windows upon reinstall isn't authorized. This is on a Dell laptop and it is out of warranty. Is there any way besides calling India/ Dell support to get the number to take ?

Why don't you run a factory restore? There should be a partition on the machine that can restore the laptop to factory settings.

Scott. The old hard drive that was in the machine was completly locked up and unrecoverable. If it had worked at all I would have dug it out. It just seems odd that windows is injecting the numbers into BIOS but it doesnt seem to always work on a reinstall. It is supposed to and last the lifetime of the machine.

What disk is being used? Is it the recovery CDs made from the recovery process or what?

It is a windows 8 install disk. Retail version. Same version (standard) as assigned to the laptop OEM release according to the sticker on the back.

This is a stupid question, is the install disk you're using "Dell Windows 8" or is it "OEM windows 8"?

I ask this because it does make a difference. I had a HP laptop that I had no end of troubles with. The last time I got it back from the repair depot they'd neglected to "Tattoo" the motherboard before sending it out. Because of that none of the restore or laptop specific utilities would work or run on it. I need to use a OEM version I had picked up. I have had this same issue with Dell desktops, it was rated to use win xp sp2. I had the Dell windows disks and OEM windows disks. Seemingly identical, but the Dell one worked and the OEM didn't.

Its what is called a "retail" version of windows. It is not OEM to anyone but Microsoft. It still should work and the bios of the laptop should have allowed it to authorize. It is the same version that the laptop came with and also matches the laptop authoization sticker on the back of the machine.

When was it purchased?

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Originally Posted by cdad

Its what is called a "retail" version of windows. It is not OEM to anyone but Microsoft. It still should work and the bios of the laptop should have allowed it to authorize. It is the same version that the laptop came with and also matches the laptop authoization sticker on the back of the machine.

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You're going to need to find a "Dell" version of the windows 8 install disk. I know, it's dumb, but that's the only way I have had success.