G'day You Lot, I'm losing it. I'm trying to install 8.1 (legitimately, for now) on a HP 20-2200a (ENERGY STAR) Product Number: J1F89AA. HP Told me it should have 8.1 S/L, but nothing better in the details. I've been using the downloads MS provides through their media download tool. I reckon I've tried them each a few times, and with the time it takes to install Win 8.1, even with a USB, it's blood frustrating. Anyone have any experience they can share in this, or maybe a complete, proven guide for how this should all be done? I'd love to be an expert in Windows activation, but with all the other crap I have to know, it's just not practical. Advancing my thanks for any help you all can provide! Cheers Dave
Gotcha... I've been looking it over, and thanks. As I stated in that other post. This machine suffered a catastrophic HDD failure and nothing was retrievable from it. My issue here, is getting the right ISO for install. I think their is something about that in the guide, but I'm not certain what ESD is, and if the intent is that it's run from the target machine. I'm looking into that now. Cheers Dave
Warranty on the HP, yes, but the're not helping. They turfed me off to MS, but they sent me back to HP. HP wants me to buy a restore set. I told them that was unacceptable and to try again. They failed.
Thanks, ZaForD! I'll have a look at the other post and see if a keyword or two can get me what I need. Could you possibly PM and useful links to me? I an't wait to put this one to bed! Cheers Dave
my 2 cents.. i installed win 8 on an HP with the media download tool and it auto activated due to BIOS slic 2.2+ (key built in to bios) so likely you need to check bios version and flash latest. and see if its missing info like UUID and so. Edit: i think i had transferred many files from original.. so it might have had to do with it