Gateway M73 OS reinstall issue

I have an acquaintance that has a Gateway M-73 laptop where the hard drive started to go bad(could not boot, a lot bad sectors, making clicking sound). We replaced the hard drive. I was able to recover the part of the registry and recover the windows product key from the registry.

When I look up the serial number on the acer self service website, it shows “M-7349U VHP32WTUS1 UMAC4PHG40 2G+1G\/250” as the product. If I am reading that correctly that would mean the OS was Vista Home Premium 32 bit.

This individual does not have recovery media. He did state that he did the upgrade to Windows 10. I do have a Vista 32 bit home basic disc, which I installed, but the product key will not activate.

What are my options for installing a legit copy of Windows on this machine?

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JackE

Go to store.acer.com. Choose USA. Click on eRecovery in the upper right corner. Then enter machine's SNID again. You should still be able to purchase the Windows installation DVD or USB media that was originally factory-installed on the machine. I think still less than $50. Jack E/NJ

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