Windows 11 Home Activation Key Wiped Drive on Acer TC-885-EB17

dave_msi

I wanted to upgrade the hard drive to a NVME ssd and managed to copy contents using Clonezilla. The NVME seemed to boot ok so I wiped the old hard dive to clear personal information. Now the NVME won't boot and tried multiple attempts to rebuild bcd tables, safe mode troubleshooting. Tried restore from a Microsoft recovery usb key and it freezes with unresponsive black screen close to 100%. Checked with Acer and the tower is out of warranty.

Finally went to Microsoft and downloaded Windows 11 iso to do a fresh install. The TC-885-EB17 tower had an oem version of Windows.

How do I install Windows without the Activation Key.

billsey

Windows should activate automatically using the key stored in the BIOS. As long as you are installing the same version (Home or Pro) as you had the original license for, it will activate after the install is complete.