Original Win 8 OEM key gone?

Hey guys,

I bought a Lenovo Y510P recently, and wanted to do a clean install. I spent a long time finding an ISO for Windows 8, because apparently they are hard to find. Regardless, the one I found I didn't realize was Windows 8 Pro, and I had already formatted my hard drive and installed it by the time I realized. Furthermore, I didn't think to write down my Windows 8 Activation Key because, well, I just assumed there was a Sticker. I guess they don't do that anymore.

Since the laptop has now been reformatted, is there any way to get my original Windows 8 Key back through the laptop? I seem to be in a bit of a pickle now.

Cheers

 

Once you install the OS, it will be activated automatically as the key is contained in the BIOS. If you see the System window, you should find the OS activated successfully. It doesn't matter if you use the Win 8 Pro OS or another version.

 

When I installed a Pro version it didn't seem to pick up a license. Probably because I didn't have Pro initially. Hopefully this OEM standard version I'm downloading picks it up and I don't have to worry. I tried 8.1, but it seems like there's a few compatibility issues with some programs/games that I'm hoping 8 doesn't have. Lack of drivers for my keyboard, FFXIV won't use my GT 750M. Strange random things.

Thanks for response!

 

In my case, I installed it on a new machine that had Windows 8 after wiping the HDD. I was using the Windows 8 Pro ISO and it skipped right over the license screen (IIRC). When I checked in the system window, it said that the machine was activated.

Oh well, I hope it works out for you.

 

Unlike W7 which had a separate ISO for each edition, the W8 ISO contains both Pro and Core. It's your activation key which determines which version is installed, and in this case since it's embedded in the BIOS it should automatically install Core during setup without prompting you to enter a key.

If you want to see the actual key in the BIOS, not the one pulled by key finder programs like Magical Jelly Bean or Belarc Advisor, you'll need to use something like RWEverything.

 

Impressive. For whatever reason when I installed using the Win 8 Pro ISO that I found, it asked for a key. Upon re-installing now with this Win 8 OEM STD version that I found last night, Windows is Activated!

Impressive Windows, impressive.

 

That's because you didn't add/modify the ei.cfg file in the \Sources directory of the ISO to change Channel from Retail to OEM and EditionID from Pro to Core (or remove the EditionID line altogether). OEM will automatically pick up the key embedded in the BIOS but Retail won't and will ask you to enter a Retail key, which you can still skip for installation, but you won't be able to activate it later. Like I said, there's no difference between the ISO for different versions and editions of Windows 8, it's just your activation key and the contents of ei.cfg that determine what gets installed.

In your case, you want to do a clean install of Windows 8 Core OEM, so you would add/edit ei.cfg with these lines:

[EditionID]
Core
[Channel]
OEM
[VL]
0

EditionID can also be changed to Pro or Enterprise, or if removed altogether the installer will ask you which edition you want to install. Channel can be changed to Retail. And VL can be changed to 1 to indicate a Volume License version.

EDIT: In the OP's case I do believe that completely removing any existing ei.cfg file from the \Sources directory will also allow you to do a clean install successfully without having to enter a key.