Very basic question here... Can I format a partition with win 8 on it now and put win 8.1 on it?

lazerorca

lazerorca

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Will the product key for win 8 that is in the bios work for 8.1 or does the computer have to be upgraded from within 8 first? Problem being... this computer becomes unresponsive after about 1 minute when I boot it. Works just fine in safe mode. I have run every anti-malware program under the sun on this thing. computer won't stay responsive long enough for me to use any of the sysinternal tools to see what is going on.
 
There was a virus going around last year that did this. Pretty much undetectable. I think it was creating itself from bits of files.
Storing stuff in odd folders under program data or something. Can't remember the details right now. I remember if you started task manager you would see suspicious things running including notepad or other things that shouldnt be there.
 
lazerorca said:
Will the product key for win 8 that is in the bios work for 8.1 or does the computer have to be upgraded from within 8 first? Problem being... this computer becomes unresponsive after about 1 minute when I boot it. Works just fine in safe mode. I have run every anti-malware program under the sun on this thing. computer won't stay responsive long enough for me to use any of the sysinternal tools to see what is going on.
Click to expand...

D7II's dbug tool is the answer for keeping your computer responsive
 
lazerorca said:
Will the product key for win 8 that is in the bios work for 8.1 or does the computer have to be upgraded from within 8 first? Problem being... this computer becomes unresponsive after about 1 minute when I boot it. Works just fine in safe mode. I have run every anti-malware program under the sun on this thing. computer won't stay responsive long enough for me to use any of the sysinternal tools to see what is going on.
Click to expand...

Have you tried imaging it to a new drive and testing from there? Also, on the malware aspect as mentioned by @NYJimbo, how about a bootable Kaspersky Rescue Disk?
 
so the product key that I retrieved from the registry is not working on the 8.1 installer when I boot it from a thumb drive... this is seriously annoying seeing that I can't find window 8 on the microsoft website. The knowledge base articles will say "download windows 8" and I get to the page and the radio button says 8.1. I can't do a reset because for whatever reason, windows recovery is telling me that the partition doesn't exist even though it does. i can't update from Windows 8 on the hard drive, because the computer becomes unresponsive after about one minute. I can't update from safe mode.

So has Microsoft fixed this registration issue with Windows 10? When I clean installed Windows 10 on my machine, it kept telling me that I needed to register. Evidently the procedure is (or was hopefully) that you had to first upgrade to Windows 10 from Win 7,8, or 8.1 first so the information would be sent to them and then you could do a clean install.
 
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You don't have to retrieve a key from the registry. Just install it. If you get prompted for a key hit skip. Make sure you are using the newest ISO for Windows 8.1. Earlier versions couldn't install using Win 8 keys and you had to use a generic key to install it and then switch to the retrieved BIOS key to activate.
 
I'm using the version that I downloaded with "Media Creation Tool" last night from Microsoft. I get to the prompt asking for the key and the "Next" button is grayed out. I did notice that I accidently chose UK English when i downloaded the iso.



markverhyden, sorry I misspoke about the product key... I got the product key using "Recover Key". It is an OEM key.
 
lazerorca said:
I'm using the version that I downloaded with "Media Creation Tool" last night from Microsoft. I get to the prompt asking for the key and the "Next" button is grayed out. I did notice that I accidently chose UK English when i downloaded the iso.



markverhyden, sorry I misspoke about the product key... I got the product key using "Recover Key". It is an OEM key.
Click to expand...

The point is you do not need to get the key from the OEM machine. You just use the appropriate temp key to download the product. After installation you will activate and the built in key will register. The link to download does not work with OEM keys last I heard.
 
lazerorca said:
I did notice that I accidently chose UK English when i downloaded the iso.
Click to expand...
Then you need to do it again. The ISO much match the product installed or it will not work. You need US version AND you need to make sure you are using the correct version home or pro. If everything is correct you will not get a prompt. If you still do and can't continue then use one the keys in Mark's link.
 
markverhyden said:
The point is you do not need to get the key from the OEM machine. You just use the appropriate temp key to download the product. After installation you will activate and the built in key will register. The link to download does not work with OEM keys last I heard.
Click to expand...
The newest 8.1 ISO doesn't even require that anymore. Microsoft fixed it. It should just work. His using the UK ISO is probably the issue here.
 
markverhyden said:
The point is you do not need to get the key from the OEM machine. You just use the appropriate temp key to download the product. After installation you will activate and the built in key will register. The link to download does not work with OEM keys last I heard.
Click to expand...

So I tried the key from the link you sent. I'm still getting a message saying that the key couldn't be verified. I'm redownloading it now with the media creation tool with US English (I accidentally downloaded UK English)... hoping maybe that is the issue.
 
So I'll go ahead and explain everything I have done so far. See what you guys think so y'all don't have to ask question about things and hopefully make it a little easier.

The man brought me his machine. It is a HP Envy. He told me that he was having issues with it becoming unresponsive soon after starting up. He had looked around and tried to do some malware removal of his own to no avail.

So i start up the machine and I realize that it's doing the same thing for me. The fan seemed to be working pretty hard, so I suspected that possibly the machine was running hot and dialing back the CPU. I boot Ultimate Boot CD and run a CPU stress test a few times... after just a few seconds the machine cuts off. So I open up the machine and clean his fan and apply some Arctic Silver... This particular computer is a pain in the ass by the way haha. The CPU is on the bottom side of the motherboard with no access panel on the bottom of the chassis for it, so I essentially have to take the whole machine apart. I call him and let him know that it was overheating before I did the repair and told him that I'd fix it for him at no charge. Boy did I wish I had looked around to see what would be involved. But anyways... I put it back together and do the stress testing and the computer stays on with no problems.

I boot the machine and it still is having the same issues. So I boot into safe mode and look around. I see that he has webroot and AVG both running active protection, so I try to install AVG with RevoUninstaller. The AVG uninstaller doesn't work, so I use the advanced option to find the files and registry entries. He also had something called "SpyHunter" that I also uninstalled. I proceed to uninstall all of the rest of the HP bloatware, a youtube downloader app that looked suspect, RealPlayer, Weather Channel app, and other things of the like... essentially just leaving him with his drivers, his photo editing software, OpenOffice, and all of his engraving programs.

I boot the computer once again, and I'm having the same issues, so I boot into several rescue disks in this order and run scan... BitDefender, Kaspersky, Avira, and ClamAV and don't find anything. I boot the machine in safe mode and then run MalwareBytes, SuperAntiSpyware, and AdwCleaner to see if there is some non-serious stuff going on... it finds a few things that aren't really of any concern. Then I run HitManPro and TDSS Killer and didn't find anything. Finally I run ComboFix and didn't find anything either.

I decide to boot it up and open procmon from sysinternals to see what might be going on. WDBackup seemed to be running a zillion things, so I got and disable the WDBackup startup item. Boot the machine... same issue.

So I call him and tell him that I'm going to need to format and reinstall everything and that he should bring me all of his engraving software and his backup drive. So he brought it this morning, and now I'm trying to reinstall Windows 8.1. I downloaded the media creation tool from M$ last night. I have tried to put the keys in from the article that markverhyden suggested. I tried win 8.1 home and it didn't work. then I just tried all of the others just for the hell of it. didn't work either. I'm ready to throw this thing out of the window lol

So currently I am redownloading Windows 8.1 US English iso with media creation tool from M$... I accidently downloaded UK English last night. I'm just waiting for it to finish, so I can run rufus to put in on one of my thumb drives. I have all of the original versions of Windows with the exception of windows 8 and 8.1 of course haha. I have been using Win 10 whenever I encounter win 8 or 8.1 since most people can't stand using it as do I as well :-). He is adamant about keeping windows 8 or 8.1 because he knows that is compatible with all of his engraving software and drivers and he has become accustomed to the windows 8 UI. I have had this machine for 3 days now between all of the slow booting and frustration of it becoming unresponsive when trying things. boot was taking at least 10-15 minutes each time... and I'd have to act fast to sign out and hold shift to restart to put it into safe mode, otherwise I'd have to go through the whole process again. the BIOS settings wouldn't stick either so I'd have to go into the bios and set it to legacy everytime I wanted to boot from my thumb drive to various rescue disks.
 
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Did you do a diagnostic on the hard drive at least? Just read through everything and I didn't see that you did. You wanna check that first before you keep on putting more time into this.
 
I don't know what I'm doing wrong, but I tried to use the media creation tool. still getting issues with the key. I found something else on M$ and I'm get the same issue except I'm being prompted to put the key in before downloading. it is not accepting the key. I'm on win 7 on my machine
 
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