I have what I thought to be a successful dual boot of ubuntu and windows 8.1 dual boot. I just found out that I've completely lost windows. I have been trying for days to install windows from usb since my zenbook doesn't have an optical drive. I need some serious help. First I need to know how to make a bootable usb, second I need to know the necessary programs and apps to download to make a full install of windows 8 or 8.1 without a product key since I don't have my orignal one...
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Welcome to askubuntu. Installing Windows without a product key is piracy IMHO. – Elder Geek Oct 22 '14 at 23:06
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First open gparted (if it is not installed install it by pressing Ctrl+Alt+T and entering
sudo apt-get install gparted
in the upcoming terminal )
and check for any ntfs partition. If you do not see one, that you probably wiped out windows when installing ubuntu.
Download a windows 8 image from somewhere (http://msdn.microsoft.com/subscriptions/downloads/?#searchTerm=&ProductFamilyId=545&Languages=en&PageSize=10&PageIndex=0&FileId=0)
and then proceed with this guide to make a bootable USB: How do I use Unetbootin to make a bootable Windows USB installer?
If I recall correctly for me simply unzipping the ISO (windows 7) to the USB worked perfectly, so maybe you should try that first, and if it fails, then try with unetbootin to create the USB.
In any case, be sure, that you also have an ubuntu startup USB, if anything goes wrong during the windows installation. (And I would create the empty partition for windows from gparted before proceeding with the install)
