Hello
I have read through this and many other forums in the last two weeks in regards to this issue, I hope this is not a duplicate.
Inspiron 3537 i5 laptop running windows 8 bought from Dell outlet UK in April 2014, certified refurbished. Upgraded to 8.1 straight away and the W10 without issue. Hard drive failed last month, lost everything my daughters laptop, no she didn't make a recovery disk! I replaced the hard drive, smaller capacity but still SATA 2 and started looking around the forums for solutions for recovery. I came across a thread here in regards to using Microsoft created installation media, which I successfully created to a DVD and installed on my new hard drive. On completion I had a activation problem, although being assured that 8.1 would be activated I was aware that my product key pre installed in the BIOS was W8. I contacted Microsoft support and was told to contact Dell who informed me that 8.1 would never work and relieved me of £30 and sent a W8 disk, although annoyed that I am paying for something twice I considered it a type of fine for not creating one.
I clean installed, booted from the DVD, I accepted the licence agreement from Microsoft which thanked me for choosing a pc pre-installed with W8, unfortunately at the end, not activated. I have used these forums and discovered the full key, entering manually, but not recognised probably due to the fact it is not supposed to be entered manually. I used the telephone activation, staying on the line to prompt a human interface and was told couldn't activate W8 as it is being blocked by Dell (their words) and must contact Dell who under the licence agreement having a valid W8 licence must unblock the product key (their words). I was also informed that this would not incur further charges from Dell as per their licence agreement with Microsoft.
I have contacted Dell and asked them to provide me with something that can validate my genuine W8 OS running on my laptop with a genuine W8 product key, without charge. The last reply was to use the recovery disk I have purchased from them, and have not blocked the product key (their words) I have tried many times using the Recovery disk trying to activate W8 to no avail, online,telephone both saying product key blocked.
It now looks like I am in a loop which I can't escape from, I have asked Dell to treat as a complaint but don't believe I will get much further.
What I know is I have a genuine Dell laptop and a W8 recovery disk and embedded functioning product key that is recognised by W8, so why can't I activate windows.
What I don't know is, has changing the hard drive or buying a Dell certified refurbished laptop somehow changed the hardware configuration of the laptop preventing an automatic activation.
Please help.