WIN 10 Upgrade Failure

martinhersey

martinhersey

Member
I had installed WIN 10 from a DVD disc I had made on a computer. When I went to it yesterday, the O/S wasn't there. I tried reinstalling the WIN 10, but the computer wasn't having any of it. I was trying to upgrade to WIN 10 on a HD that had had WIN 10 on it, but the WIN 10 wasn't there anymore. Of course, you can't upgrade WIN if there is no O/S to begin with. Also, you can't upgrade WIN from an already upgraded WIN. Can someone tell me how to find the original WIN 10 upgrade on my HD? This was an upgrade from WIN 7 using a DVD of WIN 10 I had downloaded from Microsoft.com. This was the second time I had used the DVD and I had to get an activation code from Microsoft.
 
Your post is very confusing. From what I read you are trying to upgrade to windows 10 on a drive that already has 10 on it. What exactly are you trying to do??? Are you saying the windows 10 install on the hard drive doesn't boot?
 
the only way left open is to revert back to the original OS and proceed with the win10 upgrade from there. or a clean install of win10. using a valid key would be needed of course.

if booting up does not detect the HDD be sure everything is seated firmly into place and reboot the machine
 
johnb35 said:
Your post is very confusing. From what I read you are trying to upgrade to windows 10 on a drive that already has 10 on it. What exactly are you trying to do??? Are you saying the windows 10 install on the hard drive doesn't boot?
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Yes to both of your questions...How can I find the copy of WIN 10 on this machine?
 
Upgrading from 7/8.1 to 10 will save a copy of you serial in the BIOS. I would wipe the OS drive and install from scratch. Should pick up your key as soon as it's connected to Microsoft.
 
johnb35 said:
Machines preinstalled with windows 7 wasn't capable of storing activation key in the bios, only windows 8 and above can do that.
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That explains it..

I recently sent my older MSI laptop in for an RMA and when I got it back they had wiped it and installed Windows 7, I immediately wiped that out and installed Windows 10, and I assumed I'd have to manually enter my purchased key. I didn't and was surprised till I saw your post and remembered that it did originally come with Windows 8 -- which I wiped out and installed Windows 7.

So, I'm assuming then because it was originally a Win8 machine from the manufacturer-- this is why my purchased key stayed within the BIOS??
 
martinhersey said:
Yes to both of your questions...How can I find the copy of WIN 10 on this machine?
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if the win10 OS install failed the second time, its likely led to an incomplete system. reverting to the earlier os would take you back to square one to start again.

I was trying to upgrade to WIN 10 on a HD that had had WIN 10 on it, but the WIN 10 wasn't there anymore.
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only one free copy of win 10 is allowed per machine. though, a win10 image backup could have been used to install win10. but a backup needs to be created soon after the upgrade.
 
I can store activation keys in the BIOS on at least G31M-S2L (LGA775), M3A32-MVP (AM2+) and P8P67 B3 (LGA1155). Granted, they weren't pre-installed with Windows 7, but the BIOS activation works just fine. Once upgraded from 7, which I did on all my machines due to excess Windows 7 keys, none of my machines would fail BIOS activation.
 
You can't, unless you mean the pre-installed serial key. There's a bunch of programs now to read the serial key. I've had most success with "Windows 8 Key Finder". Not sure if it works with Windows 10 and/or non-pre-installed keys (keys stored after upgrading), since I haven't had a need for it for a year or two.
 
martinhersey said:
Yes to both of your questions...How can I find the copy of WIN 10 on this machine?
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martinhersey said:
How do I find the previous O/S in the BIOS?
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The BIOS just is a little read only section of memory stored on a special chip. It tells the computer what to use to start up with...

The BIOS will perform a Power On Self Test POST to make sure vital stuff works. It then boots to the first device (usually a hard drive) which contains the program needed to start Windows.
 
I've heard this thrown around here lately that Windows 10 stores it's activation/serial info in the computers BIOS. I wasn't aware that the OS ever stored data into the BIOS, are we sure it's simply not Windows reading the BIOS information such as the serial number, checking it against Microsoft's servers, and then allowing installation? That seems more likely than possibly corrupting someone's BIOS.
 
Geoff said:
I've heard this thrown around here lately that Windows 10 stores it's activation/serial info in the computers BIOS. I wasn't aware that the OS ever stored data into the BIOS, are we sure it's simply not Windows reading the BIOS information such as the serial number, checking it against Microsoft's servers, and then allowing installation? That seems more likely than possibly corrupting someone's BIOS.
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UFEI allows boot information to be stored in a non volatile flash memory, rather than having to use a MBR on the bootable device.
 
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