badbass Posted August 4, 2014 Share Posted August 4, 2014 What is a fast legal efficent way to reinstall win 8.1 "oem" on an acer laptop. I turned a consulting gig down because the person did not have the operating system software media. This was on an acer laptop that had problems at boot. Then I said doh computers don't come with the OS software anymore. There is a utility from ms it only works with the retail version. The laptop was locking up at boot. Meaning I think the file that tells it where to find the boot files is broken I think. Could be a ram problem. What have you done to deal with the issue of not having the OEM windows 7 or 8 cd. Must put the cd or os on a Flash drive. Next I have a dell laptop I am going to poke around on youtube and google to see how to turn off UEFI. To try and run a live os from a flash drive system rescue cd ubuntu etc. I will let you know what I come up with. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
cooper Posted August 4, 2014 Share Posted August 4, 2014 I think there should be a license key sticker attached to typically the bottom of the laptop which also specifies the flavor of Windows it's for. It was my understanding that you could just install from any Windows install disk of that type (i.e. it doesn't have to be the exact one he may or may not (should?) have gotten with his laptop) using that key and thus end up with a fully legit install. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badbass Posted August 4, 2014 Author Share Posted August 4, 2014 I need to do more research on this. Oem cd keys are locked into the uefi bios. I am going see if we can solve this a 25 digit key is locked into the uefi bios. Through digital river the windows 7 .iso's can be down loaded but you need a key. There is a utility for retail version of windows 8. Just put the key in it will get the bits for you. The best thing for me to do is to put a question on the dell toshiba hp acer and asus forums to see what others have done. I will try to give a play by play. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
barry99705 Posted August 4, 2014 Share Posted August 4, 2014 Acer support will send you a recovery disk for a smallish fee. There "should" be a recovery partition as well, though I've had both good and horrible experience with those. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
badbass Posted August 9, 2014 Author Share Posted August 9, 2014 To boot from a live cd ubuntu etc. What I did on two dell laptops that worked is when turning on the laptop press f12 when the boot menu comes up select cd/dvd. Quite often I will not boot on its own to ubuntu or other live os's. Have not tried the usb stick yet. I will keep you posted. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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