UKC

Can anyone help

I have an advent laptop running windows 8.1 and want to reinstall to factory settings

I have removed all files I want and have tried running the built in restore and it starts it then stops and says that it cannot complete the restore

I have some image discs from when the laptop was first bought but again it doesnt recognise anything

Can I do it online? Where would I find the windows registration the laptop

In reply to cfer:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-HK/windows-8/create-reset-refresh-media

should sort you out I think. Back up first ofc

Your product key will be on a sticker most probably on the laptop. This might be underneath. So write it down before you start to avoid gymnastic typing./

In reply to cfer:

Your best bet is probably those recovery disks from when the laptop was new. You say it doesn't recognise anything - are you sure you're using them correctly? Sometimes you need to go into the UEFI/BIOS configuration, set it to boot from CD, then reboot with the CD in the drive.

A reinstall could be trickier. With windows 8.1, you may well not have a licence key sticker. Instead, the licence key is embedded in the UEFI/BIOS and windows should pick it up and activate itself when you install it. Of course if you wipe your current install and then this process doesn't work, you're up a certain creek without a certain implement, but that's apparently quite rare. To do a clean install this way you'll need a windows 8.1 disk/usb, these used to be available legal and free via digitalriver, but I think that may not be the case any more. There is a tool for making disks, but I haven't tried it.
I haven't checked them in detail, but you might find these instructions useful
http://www.eightforums.com/installation-setup/38486-need-help-formatted-gen...

In reply to cfer:

Is it offering you an upgrade to windows 10? Did this yesterday and all is good, so far...

In reply to cfer:

I think its some issue deeper, have tried from the link posted above and it still wont reinstall, I am thinking it may be because it was originally windows 7 and now is 8.1 so the restore disks and recovery partition are for windows 7.

Am waiting for windows 10, told I will get an email soon to install it

In the meantime I have removed everything, all programmes and files and un-installed them, run malwarebytes, disk clean up and de frag and it seems a little better but not 100%