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re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

penneck
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re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

I've had to replace the hard drive in my grand-daughters laptop after a total failure. I have been able to re-install Win 10 and get it working, but am having problems with Office 2016 Home & Student. The company I obtained the original install of Office 2016 from has gone out of business so I cannot get help there. I have tried using their original instructions, but I get to the point where you load the Product Key, and Microsoft says it doesn't recognise it. It is what I feared could happen when you use this ridiculous method of loading software over the net, rather than having it supplied on a DVD

Any suggestions please? Thanks

14 REPLIES 14
Oldjim
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

G3WYP
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

I had exactly the same problem with my Laptop after a Microsoft update and had to do a clean reinstall. When I came to Office 2016 product key would not work and I got an option to register either online or by phone and a long list of numbers were displayed. When I tried the phone option I got a message saying this was not possible now but I got a number from my supplier which was 0800 0188 354.I rang this number which was Microsoft and an automated system asked for the number's via the phone keyboard then it gave me a new set of numbers to insert in the boxes on screen and it registered Office. I wrote the numbers down instead of putting straight into box's as they tell you these numbers can be used again if a problem. Hope this helps.

 

Derek

penneck
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

Thanks OldJim, but it leads me to where I have already been, and I still get stuck there. I am beginning to wonder if there is another Microsoft Account that I have forgotten about. I had to do the original install on my grand-daughters laptop at her home so I wasn't in a position to record any new account details that I may have had to create. Is there a way to check on that? It would be more like "I have this Product Key - what is the User Name on the account that uses it?" If I knew that, I might be able to remember the password

penneck
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

Hello Derek,

I've just tried your method. It starts to work in that MS identifies itself, but asks for the Installation Wizard to be open. As you indicated, it then asks for a number to be keyed in on the phone keypad, but the only thing I have is the Product Key which includes letters. The first letter is an R, so I don't know whether this requires just one push of the '7' button or four pushes of it. I tried the latter and the screen showed '7777'. With the Product Key being 25 characters, many being letters, the latter method could get rather long.

Does that make sense, or is Microsoft asking for a different code, not the Product Key?

Oldjim
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

if you put in the code they gave you did you get an error code

Alternatively if you use a smart phone can you put in the code directly

mikelahey
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

@penneck is your granddaughter currently a student at a university or higher education college. The reason I ask is that some colleges and unis provide free office 365 installations to student for the durations of their course. The uni or college should be able to advise how to get a new licence key in this case.
G3WYP
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

iI attempted to register when asked by office and when I entered the product key it said that was not recognised and asked whether I wished to register on line or via phone I requested phone and was told cannot do that now. A long series of numbers was shown under the boxes for product number. When I used the 0800 number I entered this long list of numbers not my product key, then I was given another set of numbers. o not use product key over phone.

 

Derek 

penneck
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

Hello Mike,

My granddaughter is still at school, not at college or university. I know that Office 365 can be free for some students, but there are schools (like hers I assume but don't know) which don't use the cloud. 15 months ago, the school computers that the kids used were all on Office 2016 H&S

What I am trying to do is find a way that gets round the fact that MS seem to supply their software over the web rather than on a CD or DVD, and so if something bad happens, you are at risk of having wasted your money. I bought Office 2016 H&S, and downloaded it, but the hard disk it was installed on has suffered terminally. Now how do I get the software again, if all I have is the Product Key supplied by a company that has gone out of business? Is this key tied up with them? Is it an MS-generated key they have forwarded to me? Is it a key that once used cannot be reused, not even for a re-install? Did I use a different MS Account than my normal one to load it, so I need to use that account now? For the latter, I cannot remember if I had to use a different account 15 months ago, so is there a way to find that account name - I should be able to guess the password

Alex
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

It could well be that the company that supplied you the key were not honest and were reselling keys on which only had one activation, which is why it is failing now.

Best thing I would do is try to contact Microsoft explaining your position.

Baldrick1
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

@penneck

This is probably a very long shot, but how dead is your old HDD? If you can borrow a HDD caddy such as https://www.amazon.co.uk/CiT-3-5-inch-SATA-Enclosure/dp/B00647A4KY/ref=sr_1_5?s=computers&ie=UTF8&qi... (assuming that the old HDD is SATA) and put your HDD in it and connect it to your computer via an USB cable. There's an outside chance that there might be some life in it if it's not needed to boot the computer. If there is anything readable on it then install something like Magical Jellybean Finder (https://www.magicaljellybean.com/keyfinder/) or Belarc Advisor on you new drive and see if it can find the product key.

For the future it is always worth running one of these to extract your product keys unless you have a paper license.

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G3WYP
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

If you can work out the account used on the initial installation the below link shows how to download and reinstall Office:

 

https://products.office.com/en-us/download-back-up-restore-microsoft-office-products?tab=ForPC

 

Another thought is could it be possible to mistake s or 5 and Zero and O, they are very similar on my original paperwork.

 

Derek

ReedRichards
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

When you install Office 2016 you are FORCED to link it to a Microsoft account.  Log back in to that account and it is easy to download and re-install a new copy of Office.  You do not need the product key if you do this.  Whoever did the original Office installation should have written down the login credentials and made sure they were kept in a safe place.

It is also possible, with help from Microsoft office Support, to transfer an Office licence from an account that you cannot access to one that you can.  But it took me about 2 hours to complete the process when I last did that.

If you have a valid product key you should be able to download a fresh copy of Office from the Microsoft servers.  Attempting this process may tell you if Microsoft like your product key or not.           

penneck
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

I think the problem may be that I have been using the wrong Microsoft Account. I've have discovered 3 accounts, but none of them accepted the Product Key I had, so I've given up. I've bought a new copy of Office 2016 from a respectable source, and installed that. As far as I can tell, it is there on the laptop, but when I tried Word 2016, the first thing it did was ask what default format (it may not have been format - my memory isn't too reliable) I wanted, but as it will be used by my granddaughter, I thought I would leave the answer to her, just in case. To get out of that, I used Task Manager to kill Word 2016

Now I need to find how to delete Word 2007 from the laptop - it was put on by the person who installed the OS (presumably to get round the same problem of getting Office 2016 loaded. I have never used Win 10 apart from when MS offered that free upgrade, and I quickly decided I didn't like it.

Thanks to all for your help

ReedRichards
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Re: re-installing s/w after hard disk failure

If you had found the right account you would not have needed the product key.  Office would have been registered to that account, you would have signed-in here https://www.office.com/ and your Office purchase would have been listed under your account details, allowing you to download a new copy.

You can run into problems running two versions of Office at the same time; it would have been better if you had uninstalled the earlier version first.