Windows 10: Installing W10 in a HD partition

Hello, I have a Windows 8.1 system (64 bit) and I "qualified" for the Windows 10 free upgrade, which I could already do.



(My system is in French, sorry about that).)

What I'd like to do is to have both systems in the same computer, I know how to shrink my HD in order to have enough room for a system.

The problem is I don't know how to install W10, the official released version, in a partition while keeping my original system, Windows 8.1, in another partition of my HD. I want to be able to choose between systems when I boot my computer.

Thank you

:)

 

Windows 10 takes too long to shutdown/restart/hibernate

Summary: I have a HD/SSD dual boot (W10/W8.1) machine that I moved the W10 partition from the HD to a partition on the SSD . Shortly after that, the shutdown time increased to about 2 minutes. The problem cleared up when I deleted the boot partitions that
I left on the HD, even though they were hidden and not involved (I thought) in the boot process.

Details:

The machine was originally furnished with a large HD with a Windows partition, a restore partition, and a SYSTEM partition on it. I later added a very large DATA partition for media files. Overtime, I added an SSD (as a dual boot) with W8.1 Pro on it
and later upgraded the OS on the HD to W10 Pro. Everything worked well in this configuration.

Recently, I added the W10 partition to the SSD and inactivated the W10 partition on the HD. This left me with a dual boot of both OSes on the SSD. The BIOS was changed so the machine booted from the SSD and I used EasyBCD to setup the dual boot using only
partitions on the SSD.

Shortly after getting everything to work OK, I noticed that the shutdown time went to about 2 minutes. The disk light flickered every so faintly as it was shutting down. Everything that others had recommended to troubleshoot this condition made no difference
in the shutdown.

I finally deleted the SYSTEM partition on the HD and that made the machine shutdown in a very short time, regardless of which OS was active. I didn't think there was any connection remaining to the HD boot capability, but obviously there was. Since then,
I deleted the original W10 partition (which was hidden) on the HD, leaving only an unused Recovery partition on the HD, as well as a large DATA partition. Everything works well now, Startup, Shutdown, and Hibernation.

I

 

Extend C: on a second, empy HD.

PC running W10. From-scratch W10 install on 256G SSD. Added second 256 SSD which is empty. How do I expand the C: partition on the second, empty HD ?

 

Win10 has to be installed as an upgrade to an existing installation. What you're trying to do is do a clean install to a different partition. While you CAN do that, it is not an upgrade, will not carry over anything from your existing install, and most important, will NOT activate. There is no capability to then activate Win10 from an existing Win7/8/8.1 key.

You can't do that with the current Win10 upgrade. When you do the upgrade, it inherits the license from your current Win7/8/8.1 installation. This means that you can not legally then go back and continue to use that Win 7/8/8.1 installation -- unless you remove Win10 and reinstall the prior OS.

 

So, if I understood correctly, what I intend to do is only possible if I paid for the OS?
Thank You

 

That's correct, you'd have to buy a separate Windows 10 licence to dual boot with your current Windows 8.