Windows 10: Deleted OS Partition and Need Help

Hello. I have an Acer laptop that had Windows 8 on it. We took the free upgrade to get to Windows 10 and tried it for a few months. Now I decided to try to install Windows 7 on it. I put the disc in the drive and booted. I deleted all partitions except for the data partition that has our movies and music on it. It tells me that Windows can't be installed on this because it is a GPT type. It appears that while the installer is running, when you delete partitions it happens immediately. I thought that it would allow me to cancel because I didn't commit the changes, but I was wrong. I can't format the entire drive because we have important documents on there. What can I do to reinstall Windows 10? We prefer 7, but I have a feeling I need to reinstall 10 first, and then back up the data to an external drive, and then wipe the whole drive to install 7.

:)

 

Dynamic disk to basic.

Hello. I want to change my dynamic disk to basik. 2 partitions. 1 500 gb with os installed, one 490 gb, no os. I saw that if i want to change it back i need to delete all partitions. How i do that with os installed on first partition? Please help me to
convert it back from dynamic.

 

Unknow drive and recovery drive located on my PC

Hi Cameron,

If the two partition that you have shown in the first screenshot that you have send contain no data, you can delete the partition. If you do have data create a backup if needed and delete the same. This will not cause any harm to your PC, as long as your
OS is not installed in that partition.

Your OS here is installed in C: drive, which will not cause any issue to the PC.

Hope this helps

Regards

 

I also have a copy of Fedora and SuSE. Perhaps there is a way I can Live Boot and transfer the files to an external hard drive?

 

You can also try to install Windows 7 X64 with GPT disk:
UEFI (Unified Extensible Firmware Interface) - Install Windows 7 with - Windows 7 Help Forums

 

Thanks very much for the link - I am going to try that if my attempt at Fedora Live DVD fails. I can copy data to this small 16 GB drive but the external 4 TB doesn't seem to be recognized...which of course is a separate discussion that likely doesn't belong on this forum *Smile

 

Instead of using Fedora. How about using the Windows Recovery disk from @Kyhi, You should be able to read the 4TB GPT disk:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

 

Do you know it is basically a poor idea to go back to Windows 7 (poor driver support, bigger security risks, suboptimal for newer pcs etc.)

Really, Windows 8.1 is technically much superior to Windows 7, drivers will be more up to date etc.

Reinstalling 7 is a PITA (zillions of updates), and you will need a new licence.

Windows 8.1 is much easier to reinstall and maintain, if you wish to go away from Windows 10

If you install start8, then you can pretty much make it feel like Windows 7.

Also, you will get nagged to reupgrade to Windows 10 in either case.

 

Ok thanks very much for the advice. I am up and running with Windows 7. But I suppose we can give 8.1 a shot again. Security risks is a good point.