Windows 10: GOt a few problems with free upgrade of Win 10 from Win 7

It's been a while since I did this. I decided to upgrade to Win 10 from a licensed version of Win 7. I should have read up on it better when I did it cause I think I totally screwed it up. It went through the upgrade process and installed. Win 10 was working. When I went for my files, I couldn't find any. It was like a new desktop without any programs.

I thought i had backed it up to a CD but didn't check that. It took a long time for the backup so I assumed I had it. Anyway, I'll try to cut this shorter.

I only had pictures and docs, none of my installed programs. I called MS and was on the phone for a couple of hours with them. I couldn't activate cause it said key was wrong. I couldn't go back to WIn 7 cause disk was overwritten. I am running WIn 10 and it seems to be fine. I got some program reinstalled and am able to do the work I used to. Guess I didn't need all the stuff I lost.

Problem now is that somehow my Win 10 OS is on an external SATA drive and everything else is on my C: drive. When I unplug the SATA I can't boot no matter what I do. As soon as I plug the SATA back in it works again.

I realize I have to buy a product key before my year is up but I'm afraid to change anything cause i don't want to be spending a week getting my PC back again. Main thing I want is to get the OS off the SATA and I;m afraid to do this. Any suggestions on how to do this SAFELY so I don't lose anything? Or maybe point me to someplace where I can learn about moving OS off external SATA drive. Thanks.

:)

 

Was WIndows 10 free upgrade ever offered to vista computers?

Hi,

Is it possible that she got a free upgrade from Vista to Win 7 or 8, then to Win 10 ?

You may be able to install Win 10 directly and have it activate if it was upgraded as mentioned...

 

Windows requires activation

I upgraded from win 7 to win 10 while it was free,so i received the win 10 pro edition. Last night i reseted the pc,and woke up to see a notification "Activate Windows"

I troubleshooted the activation and i got an error saying that i have a licence for win 10 home edition. I dont mind that,only problem is that i dont have a key for win 10 because i upgraded while it was free. I only have the key for my win 7.

 

Some information that will help us help you:
Post a complete screenshot of your disk management screen. Please be sure to widen the columns so we can see all the information contained in them:
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of - Windows 10 Forums

Then right click on start icon, select Command Prompt (Admin). Run:
slmgr /dlv

Post the results of that too, please. There is no uniquely identifying information contained in the results, so please don't blank anything out.

 

Screenshot

 

Screenshot

E: is a SATA external drive where I believe OS is cause when I unplug it my computer won't boot.

 

Assuming you have a legacy BIOS computer - your computer is booting from the 13.25GB Recovery Partition on Drive 0 (physical drive 0 also contains the E: OS). The OS it is loading, however, is on C: drive on Disk 1. That is why you must have both drives connected for the computer to boot. It boots from disk 0, but when it does, it is loading Windows from disk 1.

The first step that I would recommend is to right click on the start icon, select Command Prompt (Admin). In the command prompt run:

BCDBOOT E:\Windows /d /addlast

If that completes successfully, restart your computer and boot into the second OS entry that you just added by the above command.

Also, do you have a Windows.old folder on either the C: or E: drive (or any drive letter)?

 

C:\Users\Mike>BCDBOOT E:\Windows /d /addlast
Failure when attempting to copy boot files.


C:\Users\Mike>

 

OK. So next try:
Right click on the start icon, select Command Prompt (Admin). In the command prompt run:

bcdboot c:\windows /s C: /f ALL

If that doesn't work then:

Make a bootable USB flash drive or DVD/CD of Kyhi's recovery drive:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

Unplug the external hard drive. Boot the computer from Kyhi's recovery drive. Run the Macrium Reflect program on it. Under the restore menu will be a utility to fix Windows startup/boot problems. Run that utility. See if that will fix it so the computer will boot from the internal hard drive only.

 

Mike,

BCDBOOT requires elevated privileges to work.

C:\Users\Mike>
as the cmd prompt indicates to me that you missed a crucial instruction.

An Admin Command Prompt is: C:\Windows\system32>
and the top title bar says: Administrator: Command Prompt

That's an easy way to tell if the cmd launched is User or Admin

No sweat, Navy gave you another way to launch Command Prompt (Admin)

 

OK, been a little busy. I actually was able to activate Windows 10 while working on another problem, but that is something else. So now back to getting my computer to work without using SATA drive having to be plugged in. I will probably use it as a backup, but would really like all my boot and system files on internal hard drive C:

I ran step as Admin and got message it worked (see below)

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.10586](c) 2015 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.


C:\WINDOWS\system32>bcdboot c:\windows /s C: /f ALL
Boot files successfully created.


C:\WINDOWS\system32>

What next? Oh bye the way, thanks for your help so far.

 

Try booting from that hard drive. Something else to check, look at the first partition on Disk 1 where that Windows OS that you want to boot is (in disk management) and make sure it says active in additional to all the other properties. If not, right click on it and select set active.