Windows 10: I really messed up

Sorry that this is long and not that well worded

I really messed up. So from the beginning. I bought a pc from one of my friends on Friday. (Specs: cpu: Intel i7 4790, gpu: nvidia geforce gtx 970, motherboard: gigabyte z97 hd3, and Windows 10 home, originally pre-installed with Windows 7 Pro)

Everything worked great and today I just download gta 5 and when I loaded I noticed the performance was low even when every setting low. So I contacted him how much fps he would get when he played and he said around 120. So I looked around and saw that it was using a gpu on the motherboard or something. It was the Intel hd graphics 4600. So I searched on how to change from the hd graphics 4600 to Gtx 970, and in some forum someone said to disable it. So I did and when I did the monitor said no signal(that is the problem).

So I panicked and searched how to enable again so I read that you should take out the cmos battery out of the motherboard for 10 min and I did. Nothing. I tried it again and nothing. So I saw that I should try to reset the cmos with a jumper. But there was not cap that you would use so I used a screwdriver and touched both of the pins for 10 seconds. Then nothing. Then this is where I smart but at the wrong time. I had the dvi connected to the Intel graphic card instead of nvidia Gtx 970. So I thought finally connected it to the Gtx 970 and started up my computer.

So I finally saw that it was starting up then bios popped up I followed everything and when I pressed exit it showed Windows starting up but instead Windows 10 it was Windows 7. So I continued to try to install Windows 7 and it gave me two choices. To upgrade or custom install. I didn't want to do custom install since it would delete every file so I clicked upgrade but it would show a message saying "The computer started using the windows installation media. Remove the installation media and restart your computer so that Windows starts normally. Then, insert the installation media and restart the upgrade. [Do not select | Custom [advanced]| to perform an upgrade." It then looped to the beginning of the installation and would keep looping.

So I tried to get a media installation media for Windows 10 on my laptop opened it pressed create installation media for other PC and followed it. Moved all files to a usb connected the usb to the PC and tried to boot it with the usb. I followed the steps when it told me that I needed a product key which I didn't have and neither did my friend. So I tried to download the media installation media for Windows 7 but before I was able to download it asked the the product key. So I looked on the case of the PC (it was pre built from cyberpowerpc) and I typed the product key that showed. It cancled and said that it was a product key for a pre-installed Windows so I was unable to use it. Sorry for making this long by the way. I'm out of ideas. Hopefully this can be fixed.

:)

 

So I really messed up my hard drive upgrade and now I am trying to return my system to the way it was.

Hi,

Thank you for being part of Windows 10.

Yes, you are right I would advise you to go ahead and flash the BIOS and check if it helps.

Warning: Be careful when changing BIOS settings. The BIOS interface is designed for advanced users, and it's possible to change a setting that could prevent your computer from
starting correctly. Updating BIOS should only be done if necessary (to solve a compatibility problem, for example). It can be a complicated process, and if an error occurs, your computer could be rendered inoperable. Be sure to follow the manufacturer's instructions
exactly.

Do get back to us for any issues pertaining in the future. We will be happy to help.

 

So I really messed up my hard drive upgrade and now I am trying to return my system to the way it was.

The story behind this is a bit long but bear with me here:

So this all started about 2 days ago when I wanted to upgrade my 120GB SSD to a 256GB one. I had heard somewhere that you could clone a hard drive and not have to reinstall your programs so I figured I would give it a shot.

The first clone attempt was with macrium reflect and just gave a "can't boot" type error. The second attempt was with a data migration utility that came with the drive (Samsung SDM) it also was a failure. Now at this point I probably should have just called
it quits and gone for a clean install, unfortunately I am not one to give up so easily.

I did some more digging and found out that there is a difference between a clone and a boot-able clone. The third attempt almost worked, I downloaded Clonezilla onto a USB and made a boot-able clone. Everything went off without a hitch windows booted into the
new hard drive and all my files where there. There was just one problem. The cloned drive had kept the same partition size as the original and the boot partition was on the right side of the disk, in between the usable and unallocated space. Now this drive
was working and I probably could have just left it where it was and made a new partition. But I really wanted to have just one partition so I tried to do some re-sizing.

I used EaseUS Partition Master to try and get everything working. I should have done things one at a time but I am impatient so I tried to do everything at once I resized the boot and the primary partition together. Windows was not happy with this and immediately
threw a boot error.

After the third boot failure things started to really go wrong. I don't know if it was Clonezilla or the multiple failed windows boots but my computer started throwing post code errors on every other boot or so. The one I kept getting was 1 long 3 short which
according to Asus (my motherboard manufacturer) indicates a display error. The display also started randomly loosing video signal in the middle of operation. I would be in the middle of something and it would black out and then the monitor would say "no video
signal" while the machine was still running. I would then have to perform a force restart.

So I tried using Clonezilla again. According to Clonezilla the cloning was a success but when I actually tried booting I found that neither drive was working. I did manage to get the 256GB drive to boot in safe mode but it wasn't at all stable. I tried to repair
the 120GB disk to get it to boot but I don't know enough about using CMD to repair disks and I couldn't get it to work.

So now I tried just doing a clean install on the 256GB SSD everything was working except I couldn't connect to my network I tried installing drivers, changing IP addresses, restarting my router, and a bunch of other suggested solutions I found online. Nothing
was working so I did another clean install. Still not working, I assume it must be an OS issue since I have gone through about 20 different forum posts and none of the suggested solutions has worked. All the clean installs and clones up to this point have
been done with windows 10 but I did have a windows 7 disk on hand so I tried installing that to see if it was an OS issue. Still couldn't connect. I tried connecting the Ethernet cable to my laptop to see if I could get a connection from there, I did. I then
plugged it back in to my main computer and it just worked...

So now thinking that I have finally solved all the problems I try yet another windows 10 install. Everything seams to be working alright, I then installed my graphics driver and... it starts crashing every thirty seconds or so. I couldn't even log in long enough
to uninstall it. This brings us to the final clean install. The machine currently is running windows 10 a slightly older version of Nvidias drivers and a few basic programs (chrome, skype, extra). It is in no way stable; the system will freeze up; the display
driver will crash (although less frequently now); the monitor will sometimes loose signal and not come back on while the rest of the machine is still running; it sometimes just restarts without warning; and It seams to throw a boot error every couple of boots
and I can't figure out why.

So basically I tried to upgrade my hard drive and I skrewed it up... I tried to clone the drive 4 times--all unsuccessfully--I have tried clean installing 5-6 times. My machine will no longer run stably, the display will sometimes just looses signal, and the
machine randomly restarts.

I have come to the realization that I have likely killed my new drive. Now I just want to try and return the machine to the state it was in before I tried to upgrade my hard drive. The old drive will not boot but the data hasn't been wiped and I was smart enough
to back it up to a different computer before I started.

If I could get this drive to boot that would be ideal because I'm a little scared of clean installs now. The boot process seams to be working but it is a bit finicky I figure I may have to flash the bios. I am hoping that this hole ordeal hasn't killed any
other components.

Any advice would be nice.

System specs:

CPU: Intel core i7 4770k

MotherBoard: Asus z97a

Graphics card: Gigabyte GeForce GTX 770 4gb

RAM: 16GB Kingston hyperX 1600Mhz

PSU: XFX 650 watt

Hard drive (old): PNY CS1100 120GB

Hard drive (new): Samsung 850 evo 256GB

 

you really need to break it up into paragraphs before most people are even going to read it ,sorry I'm dyslexic and defiantly cant read it

 

Sorry about that. I broke it up into a few paragraphs. If it doesn't help just let me know.

 

If it came with Windows 7 preinstalled there must be some kind of recovery disc. Ask your friend about it. With this disc you should be able to restore your pc to factory defaults. But don't forget to backup your data before you restore factory defaults. If you cannot start Windows you can use a Linux live disc (for example Linux Mint).

 

Just a question. Do you think it's possible that I just buy Windows 10 home and use that product key to install it?

 

just choose to skip or don't do this now when asked for a win10 key and it should continue ,,and the reason it started to install win7 was because you reset the bios, the bios default boot is to the windows recover partition, so the computer must still have the win7 recovery partition on the hdd, its of no use to you any more ......

 

Thanks for the reply. I tried this already after someone suggested it on another forum. And it shows a message (not sure if it's this one but something related) : "The computer started using the windows installation media. Remove the installation media and restart your computer so that Windows starts normally. Then, insert the installation media and restart the upgrade. [Do not select | Custom [advanced]| to perform an upgrade."

Then it would make me start from the beginning of the installation like its on a loop.

 

[UPDATE]
I download Windows 10 ISO on my laptop in my usb. I connected it to my PC and tried to see if I can install Windows 10. Nothing worked couldn't use any drives to install Windows. So I tried to trouble shoot and when I did it said that the drives where Windows is installed are locked.

 

Can you boot the Win10 install?

Yes: press Shift+F10 at the first install screen

type the following commands

diskpart
lis dis

sel dis 0
lis par

lis vol
(take a picture of the diskpart output with a phone or digital camera)

exit
exitClose install (X in upper right corner)

Post the picture of the ouput

 

Sry for not posting this earlier, but I finally got Windows 10 installed. Had to do reset my windows and delete all my files (there was barely any files just 4 games so it wasn't a big deal). Now the only thing that is bugging me is I have my C drive with 900 gb of space and D drive with 1.8 tb of space and the D drive is a system raw format. I'm unable to use it. I've used a program called m3filerecovery and m3rawfilerecovery and still unable to use it. It's not a big problem I just don't want all that space to be useless. But I guess that's for another discussion.

Thanks for all the replies everyone!

 

Open diskmgmt.msc and format the partition with NTFS . This deletes everything that might be stored on that partition and makes it usable again.