Windows 10: A Basic HDD Replacement Question

We have an HP All-In-One unit that originally came with Windows 8.1 about a 18 months ago. We upgraded to Windows 10 in September and it's been running great unit a few days ago when we got the following boot message:

1720 - SMART Hard Drive detects imminent failure
Failing Drive: SATAO
Failing Attribute: # B8

It would not boot into Windows and would only take me into the troubleshooter. I went to a command prompt and ran chkdsk /f, after which it did let me restart the computer, and although it seems to be okay, that same msg still appears at boot. It's just not preventing me from successfully getting into Windows any longer.

So if I have to replace the drive what do I do to get the OS back to Windows 10. We, of course have no Windows 10 disk, or even an 8.1 disk. If I put a new HDD in the unit and turn it on will there be some facility for allowing me to get W10 back? Without a disk? Or even 8.1? We have everything important backed up on an external 1TB drive, so taking it back to factory settings is fine with us. Even if we have to go back to 8.1, I assume we could always re-upgrade, couldn't we?

:)

 

Microdrive vs Internal Flash vs Micro SD

Definitely agree - in fact, as soon prices come down a bit, flash is going to replace HDD in laptops.

It's a no brain-er, really: flash is lighter, faster, less power-hungry and much, much more robust and reliable.

Basically, the sooner we get HDDs out of mobile devices the better

 

Windows 10 Upgrade after deadline

Hello,

recently my laptop HDD died so I got it replaced and they installed Windows 8.1 (original OS for this laptop). My question is: Is there still a way of getting the free version of Windows 10?

Notes:

Only the HDD was replaced.

I have written the Win. 10 product key that I got after the free upgrade.

 

Hi, having activated Win 10 on your PC, you can simply replace your HDD, and clean install Win 10 (x32 or x64 as you like). There should be no need to enter a license code. (I didn't have to). Worst case you'd need to contact MS, which should be relatively routine.

You don't have to reinstall Win 8.

Your best approach is to create a Win 10 install disk and proceed from there. Why? You can subsequently use it
a. as a boot disk
b. for an in place upgrade repair (see tutorial section) - a real plus feature in Win 10.
c. It's one download.

Personally I would skip updates while installing.
As soon as you have your drivers configured, and a working environment, use disk imaging and create an image.

Now, you have backups, great. But have you started to use disk imaging yet? (3rd party program recommended widely here for this).
Why?
- allows you to back up complete disks/partitions
- would have allowed to to put a new disk in, and recover your PC EXACTLY AS IT WAS when imaged, in under an hour. A massive time saving.
- you can mount the images and extract files
- you can update your images (updates are smaller and faster)
- can provide a migration route to a new PC by restoring to dissimilar hardware, or, as I've just done, 300 + programs, settings etc in about 3 hours (a lot of that processing the data).
- allows you to restore a non-booting PC to the state it was in when you created the image in under an hour without tech assistance. (Hardware faults excepted).

Macrium Reflect (free) doesn't support incremental imaging, but is extremely competent if a bit geeky. Currently I like O&O Diskimage 9 (not free) rather than Aomei Backupper (free is ok)

You need a large external disk, and you must create the boot medium and ensure your BIOS/UEFI is configured or can be configured to boot from it.

 

Thanks. Never having dealt with a new HDD in either 8 or 10, I wasn't sure what would happen if I stuck an unformatted HDD in the computer and turned it on. Would it do anything? Would it tell me that no OS was detected? Or would the BIOS take over and talk me through a reinstall of 10? I guess you're telling me that the last option is what I should expect.

 

Blank disk = blank screen. You'll probably get a flashing white underline top left. Preceded by a manufacturer splash screen etc. BIOS or UEFI will load, that's all. As your specs are incomplete, I don't know which you're using. A problem you may face with UEFI is getting your PC to boot from an external bootable medium.

BIOS and UEFI know nothing about Windows. You could equally install Linux.
They only provide basic code that's loaded into RAM to enable you to use USB devices and DVD-ROM, and enough to start an OS running from a disk.

As regards UEFI I'm on a learning curve just having set up my new custom laptop from a clean install of win 10 to 300+ progs and settings in about 4 hours work- with appropriate disk images and tools to do the heavy lifting. Getting its UEFI to offer boot options required me to press a key (F7) whilst booting - and then the options offered were relatively uninterpretable. (I.e. nothing as easy as 'DVD-RW' was on offer - there was DVDRAM buried in a string o characters. Hmm, BIOS was easy. But UEFI implementations vary from manufacturer to manufacturer, and from laptop to desktop. Then you run into Secure Boot (you want this off) and CSM (enabled for legacy e.g. USB boot it I vaguely recall).

 

You will want to review a few guides including one where you could have simply skipped the upgrade at this time unlike the initial requirement seen last summer to upgrade first and then seeing a clean install after 10 was activated the first time. Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First - Windows 10 Forums

Since your's was a direct upgrade by way of the Windows updates you will be needing some 10 media to work with! Besides the next guide there are actually two options one being the immediate creation of the USB Installation Key requiring an 8gb or 16gb flash drive since the Threashold 2 Update wraps up both the 32bit and 64bit flavors of both the Home and Pro editions into one large update seen in November. The alternative is the download page at the MS Tech Bench Program site there where you choose either the 32bit or 64bit dual edition iso at the present time. Windows 10 ISO Download - Windows 10 Forums

With the Media Creation tool mentioned in the guide there you can also download and save the "Windows.iso" file to a folder on the drive to have available. But you will first need to be on either another system or try running the "chkdks /r/f" command instead of the "chkdsk /f" since it appear the "/r" for repair seems to be working better lately the tne "/f" for Fix switch added onto the command. The iso download using the MC Tool will be a "4 in 1" while the Tech Bench is the dual edition being the main difference. At some were looking to see a consolation of editions made up for use on multiple systems while the November update had to be rolled up in order to work for everyone!

And of course the last guide here to get you going once the All in One you have there is back running again or you are on another machine to view is the one seen at Windows 10 - Clean Install - Windows 10 Forums

When going out to get another drive that will come in totally blank with nothing on it. You can follow the guide closely there or use a 3rd party drive partitioning program to see the replacement partitioned and formatted ahead of time and then won't need to use the Drive tools option when selecting the Custom option. That will simply avoid seeing the System Reserved partition created at the front of the drive being a problem for some at one time.

The guide will also explain how to get past the UEFI problem that can prevent booting up from a flash drive which I was running into on an HP 7 laptop as well as a new 10 laptop lately where you are then forced to boot live from optical media. If that becomes the case the best option would be the direct download for the dual edition iso from Tech Bench and

 

If it were me, I would just install Macrium Reflect Free, and create the rescue USB/DVD when prompted to. Save a backup image of the existing hard drive onto the external hard drive. Replace the hard drive in the All-In-One, boot from the Macrium rescue USB/DVD and restore the image from the external hard drive onto the new hard drive. Pick up right where you left off without re-installing anything.

Macrium Reflect Free

 

My impression of this is that restoring an image of the current mess wouldn't be making any progress but work in the opposite direction. Since this was an upgrade install to 10 it's highly more probable to assume the upgrade came out buggy while the bugs simply took longer to appear unlike finding the Start button missing or not able to open things up in the Start menu like the AllApps! A clean install since everything important is already backed up on the external which would have to be unplugged by the way during the fresh 10 install would clean all this up.

If you are not seeing a bugged up upgrade then you are likely seeing numerous disk errors on the drive which can also stall Windows from starting up and/or running properly. The Disk Check command with both the repair switches added to the command entered into the Command prompt(admin) option will schedule that again to see if cleaning things up will get 10 running again before a last resort being a clean install recommended or a fast second upgrade install to repair which is rather redundant. A clean install would be the option if cleaning up the disk errors fails to see effective results.

 

I would try the Macrium suggestion from NavyLCDR first. This way you will save all your programs, setting and data. If Windows 10 doesn't run right you could download the version of Windows 10 you have installed from TechNet. Mount the ISO by double clicking on it and run the setup.exe. This will reinstall Windows and all your programs and files will be intact.

 

Agreed. You can always repair install or clean install over an image. But you can never restore an image that wasn't made.

 

That is so true. With the prices of HDD's being so cheap it doesn't make sense not to make regular images of your drive and backups of your files. I just bought a 2 TB WD Passport Ultra from Walmart for $89.00.

 

Okay... After getting the initial from dalchina, where he mentioned that the 'best approach <would be> to create a Win 10 install disk and proceed from there', which led to believe that no disk would be necessary. Since the PC never even booted into Windows, but only to the troubleshooter, I assumed that the troubleshooter was outside of Windows, and that it was part of the computer BIOS. Which, of course made me think that the troubleshooter would still be available even with a new hard drive. Sadly that seems not to be the case. I (naively, apparently) thought that since Microsoft had moved the product key to the BIOS that they found some method of getting the troubleshooting and recovery there as well. (Everybody stop rolling their eyes). I keep hearing that Microsoft keeps making these things more idiot proof and easier to fix and troubleshoot, etc.....

Well, if the HDD goes bad you still need a disk of some sort. And the manufacturers still refuse to supply them with a purchase. So in my case I'm really worse off than if I'd been running Windows 98. I'd have just fished out the disk, popped it into the DVD drive and reinstalled, then copied my stuff from the backup. Now I have to jump through what seems to be significantly more hoops - and I still don't know what I need in the way of tools. Do I need a flash drive for Macrium, or can I just use blank DVDs. I assume that when I download the Windows 10 iso file that a single DVD will be sufficient for storing the image file?

 

Windows does not store product keys or any other information in bios. The troubleshooting menu is part of the Windows recovery environment which is a separate partition on your hard drive. To make a Windows installation disk or Macrium Rescue disk, a blank DVD will work.

 

Well here's a list of things to cross examine if you prefer.
1)Download 10 - Noting blank dvd-r not large enough for 4 in 1 or dual edition iso download to start with since max on blank dvds is typically under 4gb! While some expanded disks may offer the 8gb capacity try to find any?! Threshold 2 download to immediate upgrade not feasible when not even able to boot into Windows to run the MC tool. Therefore download and save to folder on drive on any machine best option!

2)Creation of 10 media advising 8gb or larger due to increased size of TH2 by way of MC tool or direct download from Tech Bench Program page

3)Creating image of trashed OS and drive loaded with disk errors "POORLY ADVISED"! That's a disaster in the making from the start! The time to see any full system image backup made is AFTER everything is on and working 100% as possible! Anything esle will only lead to some major headaches either immediate or delayed.

4)Upgrade to Repair type of install to preserve paid for programs long enough to see uninstalled while connected online to preserve product licenses with 3rd party softwares for fresh install after a fresh full clean install of everything would be an extra step to save on the need to repurchase the same all over again being why you might take that option while for things you can simply toss back on following a clean install even following a full wipe of the drive including repartitioning to start fresh on a brand new primary is something the more advanced user is likely to see to having everything already backed up elsewhere which you have there.

So how am I doing so far? *Smile The run of the Disk Check tool and even if you get back into 10 again a run of the "sfc /scannow" SFC=System File Checker tool won't guaranty not wanting to see a good working fresh start since the upgrade is what apparently came out buggy and certainly nothing you would create an image of!

The reason for unplugging the external drive is obviously a new situation being seen now with the 10 install compared to the past versions where only a second OS previously would need to be unplugged to prevent the mbr, GPT, boot loader, etc. from ending up in the wrong place. While first trying to get the initial upgrade to go on here it wouldn't! Why? The boot files ended up on Storage drive #2 while the temporary installation folders ended up being found on Storage drive #1.

Those are the "$Windows~BT" and with the 64bit OS also the "$Windows~WS" folders(not always seen) which remain on the drive once 10 goes you also have right there to see a repair install going if you are able to get back into Windows again that is. Tried the F8 Safe mode option? And yes the recovery tools are on the second or third OEM partition which may actually be at the front of the drive while the System Reserved is at the back of the drive.

With a custom install the System Reserved generally ends up being the first in line when the drive is new and you allow the Windows installer to prep the drive not already having been partitioned and formatted. If you should find that the present hard drive is shot then this is what you will be seeing. The setup.exe file to start up the 10 installer however is found with the initial upgrade in one of those two folders that sees not only the "Sources" folder but opens to the "Windows" folder also containing a second "source" with small S sub folder that contains the "install.esd" file that can be turned into an ISO! ESD to ISO - Create Bootable ISO from Windows 10 ESD File - Windows 10 Forums

Note the guide there is from late 2014 while 10 was still in the Alpha stages before reaching beta and onto the Tech Preview builds seen by the Windows Insider Program. When just trying to use the conversion tool here all I would see is a split second flash of what looked like a command prompt window opening and closing in a flash ruling that option out at this time. The MS tool will provided the 4 in 1 iso which is good if later you find a Pro machine running 7, 8, or 8.1 you are asked to upgrade or simply prefer to move up from the Home edition.