I've been handed a non-booting laptop and found the hard drive is dead, I've popped WIndows 8.1 on it but it won't activate. I've tried RWEverything and each other key reading tool I can find and none of them can find a Windows 8/8/1 key, I've tried updating the bios to the latest and ensuring UEFI is enabled but still no luck.
The laptop has apparently never had a new motherboard although it did have a new hard drive under warranty in its first year. From reading topics here since the machine is out of warranty there's not much more I can do aside from purchase a license or look into W7 options but thought it's worth checking.
Thanks,
John
