Aaron Reinhard
New Member
A friend of mine had an HP laptop with Windows 8.1 installed on it. A few months ago, he got an error message about one of his cooling fans failing, but it did not interrupt the laptop from running. So, he ignored it.
Last week, he got a pop-up stating that his computer was ready to install Windows 10 for free. He initiated the upgrade and walked away from his laptop. He came back about 5 hours later and the screen was flashing different colors. So, he unplugged it and removed the battery.
The next day, he plugged it back in and tried to turn it on. Nothing happened. It was as dead as a door nail. He brought it to me to check and I came to the conclusion that his motherboard had overheated during the upgrade due to the failed fan.
He decided to purchase a new laptop and asked me to upgrade it to Windows 10 and transfer his pictures. I've done all of that with no problem. Here's my question...his old computer still has a good version of Windows 8.1 on the hard drive that I would like to retrieve if possible. He also has a sticker on the bottom of the laptop with the key.
Do I need just the key sticker or do I need to use that key with the software that's installed on the hard drive?
Last week, he got a pop-up stating that his computer was ready to install Windows 10 for free. He initiated the upgrade and walked away from his laptop. He came back about 5 hours later and the screen was flashing different colors. So, he unplugged it and removed the battery.
The next day, he plugged it back in and tried to turn it on. Nothing happened. It was as dead as a door nail. He brought it to me to check and I came to the conclusion that his motherboard had overheated during the upgrade due to the failed fan.
He decided to purchase a new laptop and asked me to upgrade it to Windows 10 and transfer his pictures. I've done all of that with no problem. Here's my question...his old computer still has a good version of Windows 8.1 on the hard drive that I would like to retrieve if possible. He also has a sticker on the bottom of the laptop with the key.
Do I need just the key sticker or do I need to use that key with the software that's installed on the hard drive?
