Replacing Lenovo laptop drive that included recovery partition?

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My friend has a Lenovo P50 laptop and the drive seems to have failed (or is failing). So we're looking at whether we can replace the drive with a new one. However that failed drive had a recovery partition and Windows on it.

If we remove the failed drive and install a new drive, what is the process to get Windows and the recovery partition onto the new drive? Assume that we cannot get it from the failed drive (we're still looking into that possibility)

I believe I can get Recovery files downloaded from Lenovo website.

Midavalo

Posted 2019-07-15T17:24:54.643

Reputation: 213

Answers

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A recovery partition is useful but not important. Assuming that you have your Licence key on the laptop or in the documentation, you can download a copy of Windows 10/8.1/7 from here: https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/ - You can install a fresh clean copy without a lot of the 'bloatware' that every laptop manufacturer tends to install these days.

Once installed via USB or DVD - Full instructions available on the above, you will need to go to the lenovo site to download and install the correct drivers for your machine (if required - check in device manager).

JohnnyVegas

Posted 2019-07-15T17:24:54.643

Reputation: 2 820

Thanks, I hadn't considered that, it could be a good solution. I'll check the license key sticker is still on the laptop – Midavalo – 2019-07-16T15:34:40.653

So a complication - Lenovo doesn't give a product key sticker on the laptop, the recovery software is linked to the laptop and gets the key somehow from the bios. Anyway I've requested a download of the recovery software from Lenovo, so I'll see if I can get in like that – Midavalo – 2019-07-16T22:46:15.123

Windows 10 does check the bios for the key, but you can't really find out if it has worked until after installation – JohnnyVegas – 2019-07-17T05:35:30.663