You have W10 on your computer. It was a free upgrade from 7 or 8 or 8.1 delivered via the net. Your HD crashes. You get a virus and have to format you HD. You do not have a copy of the previous OS on CD or DVD because it was installed on the HD when you bought the machine. So, how do you get W10 back on your machine?
So here's a question.......
- Thread starter jpk
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Hi, I had a similar problem and a lengthy conversation with Microsoft. Basically you cant upgrade to win10 until you have a genuine up and running os of 7 or 8 installed. The only answer I can think of, is to borrow a dvd backup from a friend, providing its legal, but you still may run into problems when installed as an upgrade to 10 checks if its the real thing and it wont let you activate WIN10 without a genuine product key or you may have to bite the bullet and buy a new install dvd. Copy and paste the link below into Amazon its £30 Hope this helps. Phil
Microsoft Windows 7 Home Premium inkl SP1 32 Bit UK - Refurbished Full Version (PC DVD), 1 User - Win7 home Premium 32 Bit [DVD-ROM] Windows 7
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It sounds then that if you have a valid disc, a physical copy of W7 or 8, you need to reinstall that OS on your machine then download and install W10 again over the previous OS. So hang onto that old copy of Windows! What about when a complete HD crash happens where the HD becomes inoperable and needs to be replaced? Those people that do not have OS discs but have the replacement OS on a partition on their HD, what can they do? Are they SOL?
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IF your computer has been running Windows 10 and it has been successfully activated, then....
You can reinstall Windows 10 on that computer, on a new hard drive (clean custom install) whenever you want.
You will need to download the installation media that you need from here...
The installation media can be obtained through either of these two resources.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/techbench
OR
http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
Once you have the ISO, you can use ImgBurn to burn it to a DVD or Rufus to burn it to a USB ThumbDrive, either of which you can use to boot your computer and reinstall Windows 10 on that computer.
Of course you would need a second working computer from which to perform these tasks.
I strongly suggest that everyone acquire and maintain a copy of the Windows ISO and installation media on hand just for such a purpose, before July 2016.
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Sounds like that's the answer, def good advice about keeping a hard copy once it's up and running again.
Trouble, thanks for the link. Last night I dl'ed and burned a copy of W10 to disc. This is very reassuring as I have installed 10 on both my desktop and laptop computers and I do not have a rescue disc incase of a HD failure or OS corruption. As posted earlier I had a scare thinking I might have to reinstall W7 to get back to W10 plus losing all my stored info. I do have a back up image on another drive but that won't help if you can't get to your main drive to begin with.