Windows 10: dual boot question

Thank you for taking the time to read this.

I currently have a dual boot setup with Windows 7 and Linux Mint. The upgrade to Win 10 is ready. Will the upgrade destroy my boot sector ? If it does, will I be able to re-install Linux after upgrading to Win 10 from Windows 7?

Thank you.

:)

 

What happens when I upgrade to window pro 10 and lose my media center.

Thank you for your answer and have one last dumb question. Would it be possible to dual boot windows 8.1 and windows 10? (Like dual booting linux and windows)

 

Upgrading Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 on a dual-boot computer that also has Windows 7 as the primary OS.

Babu V ...that link is for how to create a dual boot system.

The question was about doing an upgrade of one opsys on an already existing dual boot system.

 

Presuming you have a machine using BIOS, not UEFI, then your drive probably uses MBR, not GPT, formatting. And in that case, when you upgrade Win 7 to Win10, the boot loader info currently used by Win7 will be updated by Win10.

You should not have to reinstall Linux Mint -- but to be safe, I recommend you look into using CloneZilla to image its partitions off to an external drive -- that's what I use for my Linux distros.

Also, since Win7 upgrades are really risky (I had the two machine I tried to upgrade BOTH fail, leaving one in an unusable state), I recommend considering doing an image backup of Win7 to an external drive using Macrium Reflect:

Macrium Reflect (MR) provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives.What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR)
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD
NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive in only a few minutes.

 

Thank you for the quick reply, my laptop does use BIOS. I used REDO for my images, so I already have them backed up. I have upgraded 3 laptops so far from Win 7 without issue. I hope that doesn't mean my odds are not good on this one as it is my personal laptop. Do you like Windows 10 ?

 

It also depends on what you are using as your boot loader. If you are using the Windows 7 boot loader, then Windows 10 should just update the Windows 7 entry to Window 10 and leave the Linux entry alone. If you are using a Linux boot loader, then the Windows 10 upgrade will likely install it's own boot loader and you will have to fix the boot loader either replacing it with Linux, or adding the entry for Linux back to it.

 

Thanks for your input, that is what I am thinking also. I use GRUB for booting. I guess a fresh install won't hurt. I had a separate partition on the hard drive that was used by both OS's. It held the files I use or need daily. It was a 10 gig partition, i can probably actually shrink it to as i only used about 3gigs.

Thank you again.

 

See here:
How to Upgrade a dual boot installation of Windows and Linux to - Microsoft Community

 

IMO the 7 to 10 upgrades aren't risky, I had no problem at all when I upgraded my two Win7 machines (custom built desktop from 2010 retail 7 Home Prem, older 2008 Dell laptop OEM 7 Pro, both x64) both upgrades went fine. All files, folders, bookmarks, desktop settings, etc... followed from 7 to 10.

Wholeheartedly agree with doing image/backups, and a good idea to take one right before performing the upgrade. I have Windows do the backup/image every Sunday night to a backup HDD.

 

I based my comments on reading the OEM forums where the vast MAJORITY of the complaints about corrupted machines from Win10 upgrades are for former Win7 machines. The Win8.1 machines, as evidenced by few comments, appear to fare much better -- which isn't surprising.

 

I found these 2 articles provide information that I will try when time permits.
HOW2GEEK

BYTELINUX

 

I upgraded my Toshiba laptop and my home built desktop to Windows 10. The Laptop went fine and I have no complaints with it. The desktop really needed a clean installation but I let the windows 10 try to upgrade it and it seemed ok until I tried to use my DVD drive and discovered that it had not been recognized by windows 10. Not listed in device manager or it Disk Manager. Tried all kinds of fixes and finally gave up. Grabbed a 1000 GB hard drive and first installed Windows 7 then installed Windows 10 and immediately I had a dual boot Win 7 and Win 10. Now I have Windows 10 working good enough I want to get rid of Windows 7. Does anybody know how I do that?

 

I've done 3 windows 7 x64 to Windows 10 RTM uprgades here this one is a dual boot windows 10 .10547/Windows 10 RTM configuration no significant isssues on any of them.

They are HP and Dell desktops and one HP Elite book all with new clean Win 7 x64 pro ISO DVD installs instead of the OEM recovery media before the in place upgrades.

No issues using the OEM product keys for Win 7pro ISO reactivations before the Win 10 in place upgrade .

On the desktops I put the video ,sound and wireess drivers from the vendors in and used the HP oem drivers on the Elite book .

OTOH this dual boot test build configuratin has been doing in place updates on the test build NTFS partition just fine for maybe 4 or 5 builds now .