I was wondering if it was possible to copy the Windows 10 OS to another hard drive and still be able to use the old one. I have an old laptop, mainly used for videos and internet use, and I would still like to be able to have it for mobility purposes. I'm in the process of building a gaming PC, so of course, I'll need an OS for that as well.
View 1 RepliesI have an SSD with a Windows 10 installation on it. This Windows 10 is and upgrade from Windows 8.1 which was an upgrade from Windows 8. I still have the Windows 8 key and installation media. What I'm doing is building a new computer, but my hard drive is still new, so I want to keep it. When I put it in the new system I plan on doing a refresh or clean install, so that everything is nice and clean.
But, I don't have a product key for Windows 10. Is my only option to use my Windows 8 CD then upgrade to 10? Is there a way to retain my 10 installation then reset it? This one hurts my brain. What I think would be best is right before I move the hard drive is do the reset, then move it to the new computer, but then I don't know how windows will active since I can't use the 8 key and it can't do a internet activation based on hardware because all the hardware is new.
I just bought a new computer and it comes with Win 10. I need to plug in my old hard drive with all my installed programs and data (Win 7) and moved them to that new drive (Win 10). Is there a software that you would recommend for this and what should be done? Clone or image? I am lost in terminology!
View 1 RepliesI am gonna upgrade my pc very soon and I am gonna switch pretty much everything except my hard drive. I am aware that I will have to re-install windows so I am gonna buy windows 10 home 64bit.
is it possible to upgrade my windows so I will keep all my files. I already have windows 8.1 on it so why wouldn't it work?
I was moving video files (AVI) from an external backup drive (WD Element) to another external backup drive (Seagate expansion) after having moved another video file from my laptop (Acer) to that Seagate external drive. The night before I had moved some video files from the WD to the Seagate with no problem but using a different laptop (Sony). These video files are all rather large and I can tell that the space is still being allocated on the Seagate because while the folder cannot be seen the space that was there is still being used by the Seagate because I am missing over 100GB which would be about the size of that now missing folder.
What happened was there was a message that the Seagate drive could not be recognized while the files were in the process of being moved to that drive from the WD. This is after I had already moved a video file of about 26GB with no problem into that now missing folder. When I saw the message I attempted several times to move files to that Seagate drive but I could not so I unplugged the Seagate drive from that laptop (Acer) then reinserted it into the usb port. I got a repair message that said it needed to be repaired because some files were corrupted and that no data would be lost but the drive would be unavailable during the repairs so I checked ok. It took only about 30 seconds and it said the repairs were completed and the drive was available but I noticed that the folder that I was moving the video files to was not gone.
As I stated there are more than 100GB of files in that folder some are video and others are audio recordings that were created by using the myrecording (audio and video) features of the Acer laptop and they are very important so I need to figure out if they can be retrieved from that Seagate drive. I have not copied anything else onto that Seagate drive but I have plugged it into the Acer computer to ensure it is being recognized. Both the external drives WD and Seagate are plug and play that are powered from the usb -- they have no power adapters.
I've already upgraded to Windows 10 on my desktop PC, and there were no issues with the upgrade. However, I work from home and my work has informed me that they won't accept Windows 10, they will only accept 7 or 8.1 as their operating system (they also only accept Internet Explorer for browsing, etc.). So I can either downgrade, which I really don't want to do, buy a second PC, which I can't afford to do, or (I'm hoping) create a new partition and run Windows 7 from that.
So my question is, is it possible to create a new partition for Windows 7 while running Windows 10 on my main partition? Will I have to downgrade and install Windows 10 later? Or can I do it from Windows 10 already?
What partitions I should have on my hard drive after I upgrade from Windows 7 to Windows Home Premium Build 10586. I have some new small partitions and I don't know if they belong to the OS or they got allocated from another source.
View 1 RepliesI recently clean-installed Windows 10 after having some issues. I gave an expansion drive the letter A:, and after some investigation read that it was likely that assigning a drive letter A or B would preclude Windows from indexing anything on that drive (really, MS?).
So I reassigned it to D: and then G:, and Windows 10 still won't index ANYTHING on the drive. I've checked all permissions and properties to make sure they match those of other drives that Windows 10 successfully indexes. Especially, I made sure that the user "SYSTEM" had full control of the drive root and everything beneath. The only difference I see and cannot change is that the other drives are marked "ACTIVE" and presumably have a MBR from previous installations. My offending drive cannot be marked active, and I don't think this would affect indexing.
I've rebuilt the index, deleted the index, and rebooted, all many many times. I even copied a folder from the offending hard drive to another drive and Windows 10 spontaneously indexed the new files right away.
I'd rather not have to offload this large drive and reformat it.
Yesterday my boot drive failed with activated Windows 10. I bought the computer from a friend with no windows packaging or product key. I have since ordered a 850 evo to replace it but how will I activate Windows with no product key?Will I have to buy a new copy of Windows or will Microsoft give me a new product key?
View 1 RepliesSo i have 2 hard drives, one new and one beginning to die on me. I have windows on the dying hard drive, and do not have the original disks or product key. I tried using DriveImage XML to copy everything onto the new drive, but for some reason when it boots it says "Hard disk failure" when i have the just the new hard drive in there (i am 100% sure it is plugged in properly). I really dont have the money to buy a new windows disk, and so i was wondering if it would work if i were to factory reset my computer and have windows 10 reinstall on my new hard drive, or is there an easier way?
View 1 RepliesWhy I do this is unimportant. In Win 7, when I move my daily backup files (2 weeks worth about 20gb) from my current BU folder to my save BU folder, the move took a couple of seconds (I think because only the file pointers were changed.) Under Win 10, it takes in excess of 2 hours (I think there is a physical move of file data.) This is my third try since installing Win 10 on my (admittedly slow) server. Will renaming the files work?
View 13 RepliesI'm about to build my first desktop, and I have a laptop with Windows 10 (upgraded from 7 which it came with). I don't plan on using the laptop anymore, so is it possible to install the laptop's hard drive into the desktop then move the Windows install to an SSD? If not, should I just buy a Win10 key or would it be possible to contact Microsoft about transferring the OS over?
View 1 RepliesI currently have one drive that contains a System Reserved partition (which includes the boot files). The status is System, Active, Primary Partition.I have another drive with the C: partition. The status is Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition.I've been told that if I remove the disk (it's a bit flaky) with the System Reserved partition, I won't be able to boot up. If this is true, is it possible to transfer that partition to another drive? If so, does it have to be at the start of the drive? Alternatively, can I make the C: partition include System status?
View 7 RepliesProblem: When I click on my H: drive or try to access it from the command line, it gives me an access denied error. However, all of the applications that I have installed on that drive run without issue. So, there is some access there. (See attached images. The first shows the hard drive state in diskmanager and in windows explorer. The second image shows the minecrafter launcher profile (that it is stored in H: and the application running, proving that there is some access.
System: Home built PC: (C:) 240GB SSD for OS, (E:) 1TB HDD for file storage and backup, (H:) 1TB HDD for large applications and video editing files. All drives are Simple, Basic, and none have encryption. All use the SATA connectors.
Process: I had Windows 7 Home 64 bit with, among many other things, Comodo Internet Security, Virtualbox, ImageDisk.
During the upgrade process, I noticed that Windows 10, during the upgrade, ran the file system check and fix "problems" on the H: drive.
(Side note) Having forgotten to uninstall Comodo before the upgrade, I did not have network after the upgrade. The fix was non-trivial as I had to use a second computer to download the unofficial comodo uninstaller. Reboot. Uninstall the network devices. Reboot. And once Windows 10 was up and running, it reinstalled the network devices and the network was available.
Still, whether before or after the Comodo uninstall and reinstall, the uninstall of ImageDisk, or the uninstall of the Virtualbox network device, I have no access to the H: drive.
Pen Drive and external hard drive keep getting errors! So I select to fix the problem scandrive recommended scan and repair. But there's never anything wrong with them it reports! And it takes ages to scan it takes 10-15 minutes for 32GB pen drive. Windows 7 Pro done it in a flash! Anything I can do about it.
View 1 RepliesEver since doing a fresh install of Windows 10, in "This PC", my secondary hard drive is not in the list. I have already tried right clicking "This PC" and clicking Manage -> Disk Management, but there is nothing there except my SSD with Windows 10 installed.
I have tried changing SATA cables, SATA ports, but it still does not appear in This PC. I have also tried installing my hard drive on a another computer to see if the files were corrupted. They were not, all files were still the same before the installation of Windows 10. I did not leave the hard drive plugged in during the installation.
In the BIOS, my computer recognizes both my SSD and my hard drive, but in This PC, it's still missing.
Okay so I'm going to be building a new PC, but I'm reusing my old motherboard and my old hard drive with Windows 10 on it. I'm going to have a second new hard drive, a new processor, and a new GPU. I'm just wondering if my PC will be able to boot into Windows fine or if I'll have to go through any hoops? Or if I'll run into any trouble with a new graphics card and processor with the old drivers still on the hard drive?
View 1 RepliesI'm running Windows 10 Professional, and have a triple monitor setup. I have two 22" Dell monitors side by side, and I have my 55" Vizio TV mounted on the wall above my monitors. The Dell monitors are connected to my video card via VGA/DVI connections, and the TV is connected via HDMI.
Well, the annoying problem I'm having is that Windows 10 will randomly move my opened windows between monitors, but only when I'm not using the computer. For example, the Dell monitor on the right is my "main" display, where I usually keep my windows open (Chrome, uTorrent, etc.). If I turn off my monitor, later when I come back, I'll find the windows I left open on my left monitor, so I end up having to drag them back over. Another example is when I used Plex Home Theater. I run that program on my Vizio TV at all times. But if I don't close the program before I turn the TV off, it ends up getting moved to my Dell monitor on the left. Also, when I have my TV turned off, and I turn it on, it blacks out both of my Dell monitors for maybe 5 seconds, and during that time it moves whatever windows I had open on my right Dell monitor over to the left one.
I had Windows 8 and Windows 7 on this PC previously, and I never had any of these issues. I have the most current video drivers installed
So this is really hard to explain so maybe my image will clear any confusions. Btw when Im talking about windows Im not talking about the OS Im talking about the applications like Google Chrome window, file explorer window, etc. So my problem is when I move a window from one place to another (like in the image) it only shows the outline. Before it didnt do that. Maybe I touched something and now I dont how to change it.
View 2 RepliesIs there a way to get rid of the feature that means that i have to move my mouse quite drastically to get a window from one screen to the next?
With windows 10 they have given us the ability to snap a window to a side, that's great but when i want to move it to the other screen, its gets irritating, how do i get around this? I just want to disable the snapping of windows when my mouse goes near the middle of my two monitors, it was good on windows 7. I hope i have explained this correctly, its quite difficult mind.
I installed Windows 7 onto my laptop , I then did a free upgrade to Windows 10. I would now like to move this installation to a new PC that I am buying. Can I do this for free? I no longer want Windows installed on my laptop, so can I transfer the licence to the new PC?
View 2 RepliesI have had windows 10 since the beta and I recently bought a kingston 120gb ssd I want to do this by reinstalling but since I got windows 10 during the beta with no install disk I have no ability to simply reinstall but how to transfer my license.
View 1 RepliesI have two hard drive on my PC, as SSD for the OS and a HDD for all my storage.I seem to have a problem with search, that it will only find stuff that is stored on the SDD.To get it to look for other files on the HD, I have to click search my stuff, and even then it still doesn't work.Is there a way to fix this? As most of my stuff is on HD and click search my stuff is a bit annoying.Also when I click rebuild index, nothing happens. I get a dialogue box saying it will take a long time, but then it doest say its indexing
View 3 RepliesMy old computer was a windows 8 that was upgraded to windows 10. I just ordered a new i5 6600 which comes with windows 10, a 250G SSD and 1 TB hard drive.. My old hard drive appears to be a Seagate Barracuda 1TB SATA which seems to be the same as the one in my new Vanquish. My old hard drive is 2/3 full and is backed up often. My question is can I move this old hard drive to my new computer as a separate drive without formatting it and use the data on it (or transfer my data) or does it need to be formatted (thus giving me roughly 2 TB of space with the 1 TB provided with the computer). It was my C: drive in the old computer.
View 8 RepliesIs it possible to do a defragmentation on my PC's hard drive?
View 2 RepliesI have an HP G42-154CA that I'm trying to get Windows 10 Pro installed on.
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I ran into an issue with the installation disc not detecting the hard drive (ie, no hard drive is listed when the screen appears to select the hard drive to install Windows on).
I've tried various drivers (latest from HP and Intel website, OEM OS installation discs etc) with no luck.. at the very least, the Windows 7 driver from HP's website for that laptop should work for installing Windows 7- same results, does not detect hard drive.
At this point I'm wondering if maybe it's a BIOS setting that's causing this? I don't recall changing anything in the BIOS when I last installed Windows (which was v8), but it was awhile ago, so can't be certain.