Bought used laptop with illegitimate windows7

[yolanda.johnson.7906]

MY husband bought a used laptop from a friend of a friend. Upon turning on the unit, we found that it did not have a genuine version of Windows7. He has been using the internet and being a very new user, he seems to have downloaded major problems with his connectivity, his facebook, his IE, and just about anything else one would use to run an Internet program. I, myself solely using our desktop, am a bit more cautious, therefore mine still works. He is a man of little patience, so I have taken on the task of trying to restore his HP to original factory condition. I would think there would be some old files I could call up, and activate the Windows version that should be on here. Right now I am in HP recovery manager on BIOS, and am somewhat intimidated. Could someone PLEASE help me get my husbands beloved Facebook back, and save my relationship. : ) THANK YOU

[BigPaw]

If the person who installed Windows 7 completely "wiped" the drive before doing so, this measure might not work. You may need to obtain some HP Restore Discs.

If all is well, then these steps will work:

Turn off the computer if it is not already off.
Disconnect and remove all external devices such as printers, USB drives, and memory cards.

Turn on the computer and immediately press the F11 key repeatedly , about once every second, until Recovery Manager opens.

On the Welcome to Recovery Manager screen, click Next .

You should see an option to Restore to factory settings, choose this. Don't choose the recovery option as it won't achieve anything with there being a different operating system installed.

Let us know how you do.

[yolanda.johnson.7906]

Thank you for the suggestion, but been there and done that. It starts the program and then after e few minutes, it stops and says restore incomplete. Same with the recover and min restore programs. Any other suggestions you may have would be greatly appreciated.

[JorgeM]

You have a few options at this point...

1) If the hard drive no longer has the recovery partition, contact HP for further assistance. They may be able to ship you the media.

2) Purchase a legitimate copy of Windows (or other operating system), wipe the drive and install the new version.

3) Contact Microsoft for further support. They may be able to work with you on obtaining a legitimate product key so that you can keep the current OS installed. However, I would not bother with this option as you have no idea how this friend of a friend has managed this system. This system could be infected with malware and you may not be aware.

[BigPaw]

Thank you for the suggestion, but been there and done that.

Then, as I mentioned, you will need to obtain HP Restore Disks. Restore Disks for your model range of HP computers mill have all the drivers, etc, ready to go.

[bobbyraw]

your answer is in the post above. bu to make it simple for you, here are the steps you need to do.
1 either call HP and buy the restore CD best option
2 if you have a genuine copy of windows, and there is a COA sticker with a windows 7 key install and use that key if it will not activate call microsoft for help in activating. or just purchase a new key
3 bring it to a computer store to get this all done.

[djroop]

If you have a genuine Win7 label underneath the laptop, download the appropriate iso file, burn to disk and re-install Windows 7 using the activation key on the label, Download from here http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itproinstall/thread/653d34d9-ac99-42db-80c8-6300f01f7aae