New motherboard and new hard drive and windows activation key.

johnj
johnj Member Posts: 18 New User

Hi, can anyone advise me please with regard to the following epic story?

I have an Acer Aspir 6935g, which came out of the box with windows vista ultimate 32 bit pre-installed. I bought it eight year ago approximately. When Microsoft released windows 8 and it was on special offer for the first three or six months, can't remember exactly how long. I went to CurrysPcWorld and purchased windows 8 Pro, whic cost me 50 pounds sterling. In the package was a 32 bit & a 64 it DVD. seeing as my machine is compatible for installing 64 bit, I decided to install 64 bit. My original hard drive had three partitions. PQService partition, whatever that is, I don't understand. A "D" partition with windows vista 32 bit, which i presume is your recovery partiton and "C" partition which had windows vista 32 bit installed on it. I inserted the 64 bit DVD., got into auto install, on the upgrade or custom install, I clicked the custom and then I clicked on the "D" partition and I either deleted it or formatted the "D" partition and merged it into one with the "C" partition, so that left me with only PQService and a "C" partion. Before I go any further, the windows 8 I purchased is not an OEM., which I believe is tied to the motherboard you install it to. I then did the clean install of windows8 Pro 64 bit, which went ok. I then got notificaation to upgrade from Microsoft to windows 8.1, which I did and was successful. I then got notification to upgrade to windows 10 Pro., which although Acer didn't do a compatibility for my machine., ie., no new drivers, I installed windows 10 Pro 64 bit and everything ok. I also made a USB stick from windows media tool for windows 10 Pro. My motherboard malfunctioned, so I managed to source a new one and also purchased another hard drive 1TB. ,as my old one is only 320GB. The shop who are installing my new motherboard and hard drive asked me for the Activation/product key,for my windows8 Pro, which I gave them. Now the technician that is doing the work has told me that he cannot activate my windows 8 Pro, which I want to install and then upgrade to 8.1 & 10. He has told me that he thinks the windows 8 Pro I purchased is an upgrade only DVD and that he'll have to install windows vista and then install windows 8. As I understand it you can only upgrade from 32 bit to 64 bit on the same windows, ie., vista to vista. So if he says my windows 8 is only an upgrade DVD, how has it done a clean install on a reformatted partition? I also asked him how come I've installed my windows 8 on many occassions doing a clean install if its only an upgrade DVD? he said that it installed and activated because it used some of the windows vista files from my original system, but I deleted my original system and or reformatted the partiton and merged it with the "C" partion. I said to him that after he re-installs my windows 8 and activates it with the windows8 activation key, if I have any problems I can just re-install from my windows 8 DVD, he said I won't be able to do that and that it would require a Vista installation before i could re-install windows 8 again. i'm not a tech by any stretch of the imagination, but the windows 8 DVD that I purchased from CurrysPCWorld says on it that it can be used for upgrade. It does not say for upgrade only, so I presume its a full windows 8 Pro version, 1 licence only, which I believe is not tied to a motherboard, but can only be used on one machine and I believe that if you have problems activating it with your key, you can phone Microsoft and get them to activate it online, is this correct? i would really appreciate as much feedback on this as possible because the shop where my laptop is, the owner has told me that i have to buy a new Microsot licence if I want to re-install either windows 8 or windows 10, without having to firat install windows Vista again.

 Thanks 4 any help

   Johnj

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