Windows – How to clean install Windows 8 without an Installation Disk

installationwindows 8windows-installation

Recently I bought a Dell Inspiron 15R Special Edition, which had Windows 8 pre-installed requiring me just to select the settings to use, such as language and time-zone, etc.

The only disk that I received with my laptop was the driver installation disk. I also did not receive a product key, but that isn't as much a problem as I know how to find in in the OS using Belarc Advisor.

My goal is to be able to format my HDD, and then install a downloaded copy of Windows 8 via either a disk or USB that contains the Installation, and then to register the product using the product key that I already own.

Is there somewhere where I can download a file or set of files that I can store on a disk or USB, that when inserted into an Operating System-less machine, will begin installing Windows 8?

Best Answer

Why do you want to format the HDD ? you'll remove recovery partition too. Better use windows reset to rest-to-factory.

To reset your PC

Swipe in from the right edge of the screen, tap Settings, and then tap Change PC settings. (If you're using a mouse, point to the upper-right corner of the screen, move the mouse pointer down, click Settings, and then click Change PC settings.)
Under PC settings, tap or click General.
Under Remove everything and reinstall Windows , tap or click Get started.
Follow the instructions on the screen.

Related Solutions

Windows – Why is the Windows XP COA product key found by winkeyfinder different from the genuine sticker product key

Basically most mass market systems use a system locked preinstall key, which is mass imaged to systems, and the restore disk will pick up on a key stored in the system's bios.Every dell (least of the same model) as such will have the same key. If you were to use a 'generic' install cd (such as one a small system builder would use), you'd need to use the key on the system.

Windows – how to dual boot fedora 18 and windows 8

Have you ever installed any Linux distro or partitioned a drive? If not, I recommend you to ask someone for help. It's really easy to break something in the process.

First, prepare your disk - defragment some partition to get free space at the end and shrink that partition. Create new partition in the free space with GParted (for example using Parted Magic)

Then install Fedora, but don't write GRUB to MBR (you'll install some replacement for it later):

Disabling GRUB installation

Click "Continue" and avoid automatic partitioning, disable LVM and choose "Standard partition". Instead, on the manual partitioning screen select your new partition and choose it as the / mount point. Remember the drive name. (for me it's sda1, for you it will probably say sda2 or sda3)

Manual partitioning screen.

Continue installing Fedora. When installation is finished, run terminal from the Activities menu and issue those commands: (replace sda1 with your partition's name)

su -c bash
mount /dev/sda1 /mnt
grub2-install --root-directory=/mnt /dev/sda1 --force
umount /mnt
exit

Now boot to Windows and install NeoGrub using EasyBCD.

Installing NeoGrub with EasyBCD

Clicking the "Configure" button will open your config file. Add something like this:

title Linux
find --set-root --ignore-floppies /boot/tboot.gz
chainloader +1

Leave an empty line at the end and save the file.

It SHOULD work, but I haven't tested it - my setup is quite different.