Can't get clean install of Windows 8.1 pick up product key from BIOS

I have Acer S3-391 with a pre-installed Win 8. Initially I thought I would downgrade to Win 7 Pro as I'm used to Win 7. So, I

deleted recovery partition of Acer Windows 8 on my hard drive and installed Win 7 Pro (with my own product key) on it. Also, I've upgraded to UEFI BIOS 2.17 version.

Now I've decided to reinstall Win 8 on my notebook, but I'm running into a problem:

As I've wiped out the original recovery partition which included all the bloatware it came with, I'm using a clean Windows 8.1 ISO image trasnferred to a FAT32 formatted USB flash drive. It's actually a Windows 8.1 Professional ISO, but I've added "ei.cfg" file with "Core" and "OEM" parameters in it. So, it installs a clean Windows 8.1 with UEFI setting in BIOS , but won't pick up a product key from UEFI BIOS. It assigns a generic key and I can't activate it with Microsoft.

Any suggestions to make it pick up the embeded product key from BIOS without ordering a recovery DVD set for $45 from Acer?

Thank you.

Accepted answers

bidzina

You're right, it shipped with 8.0 OEM. Last night I found Win 8.0 ISO, modified it with $OEM$ folder and it activated! Smiley Happy

All comments

HK53T

but it is not OEM load is a retail load, the system did not ship with 8.1 pro?

order recovery media from Acer store or contact technical support to get media

bidzina

You're right, it shipped with 8.0 OEM. Last night I found Win 8.0 ISO, modified it with $OEM$ folder and it activated! Smiley Happy

Hecticated

Here is a video tutorial of exactly what you want to do without having to change any settings or muck around. It uses a regular microsoft ISO downloadable from anywhere and you can simply change the license from retail to OEM.