I recently got a computer with a Chinese Windows 7 Home Edition (live in China) version installed on it. Said computer has a "Recovery" 10GB partition. Model : Dell Optiplex 9030 AIO (All-in-One).
Since I do not speak chinese, I got hasty and clean installed Windows 10 in English directly on it. I actually just turned the computer on once before conducting the Windows 10 clean install, so I never created backup points or such.
The person who provided me with a Windows 10 copy told me it was for free anyways and that I could activate it with my Windows 7 key afterwards. As it turns out, this was not at all the correct way to proceed and I find myself with an unactivated version of Windows 10. So now what I need to do is: go back to Windows 7; activate my Chinese version; ask for an upgrade to Windows 10 from there.
I tried to "reset" my computer to factory settings from Settings (in order to get my Windows 7 copy up and running) but it only allows to clean re-install Windows 10. I do not have an "Go back to Windows 7" option since I erased everything when installing Windows 10. I do not have an installation/recovery DVD either.
I know that I have a "Recovery" partition because I can see it under This PC -> Manage -> Disk Management. But I just cannot access it... I tried hitting F12 to load the boot options but the recovery partition does not appear either.
What are my options? What can I do to go back to Windows 7? Or is there a way to still activate my copy of Windows 10 with my unactivated Windows 7 key? How can I still conduct a Factory Restore?