Pre-installed Windows 8 formatted. I want Windows 8 back

ahmed_ababneh

Reputable
Oct 15, 2015
2
0
4,510
I got a brand new HP laptop. It came with Windows 8 Pro pre-installed.
I installed Ubuntu 14.04. I chose to format the whole hard disk while installing Ubuntu, and Windows was gone from my PC.
Now, I want to install Windows 8 on my PC. How can I get Windows 8 on my laptop without having to buy it?
P.S. I do not know my windows key.

UPDATE:
I got the "Operating System DVD Windows 8.1 Pro" and the "Application System Window 8.1 Pro" DVD from HP

Unfortunately, I neither have a CD/DVD ROM driver in my laptop (it is too thin to have it), nor an external DVD driver.

So the question now is, how can I use this DVD to install Windows on my laptop?

Thank you all :)
 

COLGeek

Cybernaut
Moderator
Contact HP for recovery media. You should also be able to retrieve the product key information from your BIOS (where stored for many Win 8 pre-installs, particularly from OEM builders like HP).

BTW, are you sure you don't already have a Win 8 recovery partition?