Computer question

ebay sells a disc called hirem, it usually sorts out boot issues. £5 ?

You surely mean you want windows 10?? Pretty much everyone thinks 8.1 is better than 8 though it's not that much different and they really tried to force 8.1 onto people.

If, and here is the if, the installer used your license key you should be able to re-upgrade to 10 relatively simply.

If he used another 8.1 key he had lying around, then perhaps not.

Your license key should afaik be registered at microsoft as being upgraded to 10 when you did it.

See:
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/12435/windows-10-upgrade-faq

You can get the install media for 10 from microsoft, not sure if there's another easier way of doing it.

Is there a licens key sticker on your laptop? Some more recent ones don't do that and it's embedded in the bios which even more confuses things..

If I had a choice it's Windows 7, 10, and then 8 is a distant turd. Spelling intentional :)

The installer used his own disc. The reason im asking this is the font and the whole sizing on websites is terrible. For example if i open a page from a link on the mirror website if opens across a full page. The font is blurry as well. Theres a label on the back of the laptop with  s/n: code snid: code and ente11hc: code. Is this the microsoft code.

Seriously mate, just go on ebay and spend a few quid on a Windows 10 bootable USB stick. Costs about £20 and you'll be all done. Win 8, even win 8.1 is pony. Microsoft knew this, hence the lightning quick decision to make 10.

Absolutely terrible advice, basing your computer on somethign as flaky as a USB stick.

Look the thing about licensing is Microsoft these days store your license upgrades at HQ.

The sticker I was talking about would look like this but it MAY not exist:
https://www.microsoft.com/OEM/en-gb/licensing/antipiracy/Pages/COA_hologram.aspx

that's always the get out for reinstall.

Deos any of this help?
https://www.cnet.com/uk/how-to/how-to-upgrade-to-windows-10-for-free-after-the-july-29-deadline/

Assuming you have a valid license you should be able to upgrade to 10. I'm still guessggn that's what you want.

If you didn't get your hands/save a copy of the windows 10 media at the time (not sure if this helps)
https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/12435/windows-10-upgrade-faq

then if I were you I'd get a windows 10 disk of correct version, make sure you watch for 32 vs 64 bit, and then from that media try to upgrade.

If you can't directly get windows 10 media from microsoft the simple way you can get it fairly secure ways anyway, in fact there was a set of direct links to microsoft floating about to get it from. So many people now don't have disks MS are happier letting people get the media and relying on the licensing.
(What you don't want to do is get it from some hacker site).

If you don't have many files i.e. it's a fresh install, you could at the worst case do a total fresh isntall of 10 I'd think, but I'd be much more wary of that.

Have a look at this and see if you can get this to work. It's the official way of getting Windows 10 media from microsoft, safe and proper like:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-gb/software-download/windows10

In fact here is a microsoft answer of someone who appears to be in your exact same position, and the answer at a glance is what I just told you to do,
READ THIS:
https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-windows_install/reinstall-windows-10-after-hard-drive-failure-and/0c0506c0-c4e2-4c8c-9b03-c5309e553b2a