Upgrade Windows 10 Home to Windows 10 Pro - Step 4 - To Enter a Product Key and Upgrade to Windows 10 Pro It is important to be online while you change to the generic key, if you try while offline it will not be able to check the activation servers and will upgrade Home to Pro regardless of whether there is a digital license to activate it. If a digital license for Pro on this PC exists then you will be upgraded, if one cannot be found on the activation servers it will say so and not proceed with the upgrade. If your machine has an existing digital license for W10 Pro, then you can upgrade from Home to Pro simply by changing the installed key to the generic W10 Pro key VK7JG-NPHTM-C97JM-9MPGT-3V66T while you are online. The hard drive plays no part in this hardware ID, so replacing it does not invalidate the digital licence. If you have had Pro activated previously on this machine, then the PC has a digital license for Pro stored on the Microsoft activation servers and linked to the unique hardware ID of this PC. What you have not said is whether this PC has ever had W10 Pro installed and activated prior to the hard drive failure.
When I had a new drive installed the company installed a non-activated copy of Windows 10 home on the new drive.
