I think it is likely that the product key in BIOS is for Windows 8 and it was upgraded to Windows 8.1. Have you tried loading Windows 8 and then doing the upgrade?
On Thu, Aug 25, 2016 at 3:48 PM, Thane Sherrington < th...@computerconnectionltd.com> wrote: > I have a Lenovo desktop with a dead hard drive (completely dead). It had > Windows 8.1, so I put in a new drive and tried to install Windows 8.1. 8.1 > doesn't detect the COA key from the BIOS (although NirSoft does) and when I > enter the key, 8.1 says it isn't valid. So I'm pretty sure the problem is > that the version of 8.1 I'm using (Pro x64 English) isn't the one that was > used by Lenovo (there are about six different version so 8.1 (Pro, non-pro, > English, English International, Single Language, etc.). > > Anyone know a way to figure out which version it was rather than just > trying every one singly? > > T > > > > >
