Windows 10: How to upgrade W-7 laptop to W-10 without factory recovery partition?

Hello everyone.
I have a fairly new Dell laptop that I installed a SSD in after cloning the original HDD.
Somehow the factory recovery partition was not copied to the SSD.
I have tried twice to upgrade to W-10 and each time it has failed with error message 0XC1900200.
Research indicate the error message relates to the missing partition. So now, my question is how to upgrade without the recovery partition?

Thank you.

:)

 

UPGRADING FROM W 8.1 PROFESSIONAL TO W 10 PROFESSIONAL

Thank you for your info.

I upgraded the common way:

1. Reserved my upgrade.

2. It came and I was notified when download was complete.

3. Told to upgrade.

4. Followed instructions without a hitch.

5. Upgrade completed successfully and I started using W 10

6. Checked on properties and found that I had received W 10 Home.

7. Did same to my Dell Desktop which had W 7 Ultimate and got W 10 Professional

So why not get W 10 Professional on Samsung Laptop NP270E5J-K01US?

 

WRONG W 10 UPGRADE VERSION

I upgraded my Samsung Laptop from W 8.1 Professional and received W 10 Home. I have tried even going back to factory settings

and upgrading again but receive same W 10 Home. Please Help.

 

Have you used the installation media to delete all partitions on your new SSD (by using the custom install option). The drive should show as all unallocated space before you begin to install.

I had various problems with my Dell way back yonder when testing and trying W10 and found doing this resolved all issues.

 

Thank you for the fast reply.

This is not a clean install. it is an upgrade from Windows 7 Pro.
I downloaded the free upgrade and ran into the problem.
If buying a copy of 10 Pro will solve the problem, I am willing to do that.

.

 

The media you use for upgrading should allow a clean install. I believe (from comments on here) that the W7 to W10 free offer is still working even though officially it ended months ago..

Have you tried this:
Clean Install Windows 10 Directly without having to Upgrade First Windows 10 Installation Upgrade Tutorials

 

Thanks again Mooly!

I do not want to do a clean install. I would lose all my data.
All I want is to upgrade the W-7 OS to W-10 and I can't do that because of the missing recovery partition.
Any thoughts on how to create the missing partition?

 

I believe the recovery partition on a Dell requires Dells own unique Master Boot Record. Even making a disk image and restoring that image 'breaks' the recovery options.

Is the cloned SSD with W7 on it working OK as a W7 installation ?

I've no quick answers as to what may fix your issue but gathering as much information will help with ideas and suggestions.

(data... as in personal files/pictures/music etc is easily copied over to a clean install if needed)

 

Can you post a screen shot of disk management?
Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of Windows 10 General Tips Tutorials

Your issue is likely with a System Reserved partition - not a recovery partition (or lack of).

 

yes, the W-7 OS is working fine. I want to upgrade to W-10 because all my work computers are 10.
I can copy all my data, yes, but I have many programs that would be lost and some I could not reinstall.

 

I think I figured out how to attach the screen shot.

 

This is the complicated procedure to upgrade from 7 pro to 10 Pro

1) download iso

2) mount as drive

3) run setup.exe

 

Thank you cereberus for your reply.

I will purchase a copy of W-10 if I absolutely have no other choice. I would like to do this on the cheap if possible.
Will installing from the .ISO disk work without the recovery partition?

 

Understood *Smile

(The small 'Data' partition seems odd to me on your screenshot. Why is it called Data I wonder and why so small)

 

Before doing the upgrade to Windows 10, I recommend making a image backup of the SSD, and having a recovery drive that you can boot the computer from to restore the image, should something go wrong. I recommend making a bootable USB flash drive or DVD of Kyhi's Recovery Tools. His tools have everything you will need:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums

Boot into his recovery tools, and you can use Macrium Reflect to make a backup image of your SSD onto an external storage location such as a USB hard drive.

The problem with your upgrade and reserved partition can be fixed by taking 50 MB (not GB!) from the front of the C: drive partition and adding it to the System Reserved partition. The System Reserved partition is the 100 MB partition at the front of your SSD that is labelled as "data". See here:
Quickly Fix: Windows 10 Upgrade Couldn't Update System Reserved Partition

Kyhi's Recovery Tools also has MiniTool Partition Wizard and AEOMI Partition Assistant installed, so you can use that to resize your partitions.

If a simple resizing of the partitions does not work, there are other - more involved - actions we can do to get you upgraded. The most effective method would be to do an image backup of your C: drive. Wipe the SSD. Install Windows 10 to it. Restore the image of the Windows 7 C: drive partition over the top of the new Windows 10 C: drive partition. Fix the boot files to point to the restored Windows 7 partition, then upgrade the Windows 7 to Windows 10. Kyhi's Recovery Tools would be key to doing that as well.