Windows 10: What is the best approach to install windows 10 to new SSD

First, let me say that last night, out of the blue,my PC crashed. Long story short, my Kingston 240gb SSD abruptly died. I'm not sure how long I had it, but it was no more than three years old. The system itself was built in 2011, but I changed the original Intel 120GB SSD to the Kingston. It gave me no prior indications before last night that it was going to die. Basically it went quickly. I thought that I could grab some files from it but it apparently doesn't seem that I will be able to. I ended up going to Best Buy and picked up a PNY 480 GB SSD and a copy of Windows 10 pro. I didn't even have a copy of any OS other than XP.

Here is my plan. I will install the new SSD and load the win 10 OS onto it. Then I want to recover a backup that I performed over a year ago. This backup was on one of my NAS drives. Apparently I procrastinated too long and failed to make scheduled backups of my C:\ drive. I think this will work because the OS I had on my "dead" drive was also Win 10 pro. The backup may be old, but it may prevent me from downloading and reinstalling a lot of apps/programs that I had before. Does this approach seem to be possible? Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

:)

 

What is the best approach to swap Win10 Home <-> Win10 Pro ?

Hello,

I am currently working with two Labtops, an old one with Win 10 Pro and a newer one with Win 10 Home.

Is it permitted / possible to transfer the Win 10 Pro Licence from the old to the new machine.

And transfer the Win 10 Home from the new to the old Labtop.

What is the best approach?

 

What is the best approach to swap Win10 Home <-> Win10 Pro ?

If the new one came preinstalled with Windows 10 Home, you can't transfer it because its an OEM license. If the old one was upgraded from a preinstalled Windows 7 Professional or Windows 8/8.1 Pro license, you can't switch it either.

When I upgrade a preinstalled (OEM) or retail version of Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 license to Windows 10, does that license remain OEM or become a retail license?

If you upgrade from a OEM or retail version of Windows 7 or Windows 8/8.1 to the free Windows 10 upgrade this summer, the license is consumed into it. Because the free upgrade is derived from the base qualifying license, Windows 10 will carry that licensing
too.

If you upgrade from a retail version, it carries the rights of a retail version.

If you upgrade from a OEM version, it carries the rights of a OEM version.

Full version (Retail):

- Includes transfer rights to another computer.

- Doesn't require a previous qualifying version of Windows.

- Expensive

Upgrade version (Retail):

- Includes transfer rights to another computer.

- require a previous qualifying version of Windows.

- Expensive, but cheaper than full version

OEM :

OEM versions of Windows are identical to Full License Retail versions except for the following:

- OEM versions do not offer any free Microsoft direct support from Microsoft support personnel

- OEM licenses are tied to the very first computer you install and activate it on

- OEM versions allow all hardware upgrades except for an upgrade to a different model motherboard

- OEM versions cannot be used to directly upgrade from an older Windows operating system

What happens if I change my motherboard?

As it pertains to the OEM license this will invalidate the Windows 10 upgrade license because it will no longer have a previous base qualifying license which is required for the free upgrade. You will then have to purchase a full retail
Windows 10 license. If the base qualifying license (Windows 7 or Windows 8.1) was a full retail version, then yes, you can transfer it.


From the Windows 10 end user license agreement:

b. Stand-alone software. If you acquired the software as stand-alone software (and also if you upgraded from software you acquired as stand-alone software), you may transfer the software to another device that belongs to you. You may also
transfer the software to a device owned by someone else if (i) you are the first licensed user of the software and (ii) the new user agrees to the terms of this agreement. You may use the backup copy we allow you to make or the media that the software came
on to transfer the software. Every time you transfer the software to a new device, you must remove the software from the prior device. You may not transfer the software to share licenses between devices.

 

Can't you just restore the backup to the new SSD without first installing Windows 10? I know I can using my Macrium Reflect backups.

Also, you didn't need to buy Windows 10. You could have downloaded it from MS using the Media Creation Tool then installed to the new SSD as you planned. It would have activated just fine since the activation information is stored on MS activation servers.

 

As @Ztruker said, you did not need to buy Windows 10 Pro, you could have downloaded it for free from Microsoft and installed and activated it based upon the previous activation of Windows 10 on that computer. You might want to save the Product Key that you purchased for future use and just click the link for "I don't have a product key" when asked to enter it.

But that being water under the bridge now, to answer your question as to how best to install it.... with the new SSD as the only physical drive connected to the computer (other than the Windows 10 USB flash drive or DVD) - boot the computer from the Windows 10 installation USB flash drive or DVD. When given the choice, select the Custom Install option. The SSD should be listed as Drive 0 with nothing but unallocated space. If there are any partitions listed, then highlight each one and click the delete button to delete them until there is nothing but unallocated space shown on the SSD.

Hightlight the unallocated space and click next.

 

First, I didn't know that I could download it again. I did try restoring the backup without windows 10 installed. It took a while, but when I tried to boot up, I did not have boot manager. I guess it was not in the backup file. Or, maybe I can only backup when windows is present. I don't know. The real problem is that after I purchased the boxed version of Win 10 pro, I looked inside. Lo and Behold...there was no disc!!! This tells you how long it's been since I installed an OS. I didn't know that they put it on USB flash drives. And...my BIOS does not recognize booting from USB! So, I downloaded plpbt to make a disc that would allow the computer to read the USB. It didn't work. Not sure if it was the correct file or not. I'm going to keep trying. I tried getting support from Microsoft, but jumping through all those hoops (couldn't sign in to Microsoft account because I had forgotten my email and password) was confusing. I will try again.

 

Very odd that your PC won`t boot from a usb drive *Huh

Just download and create an install dvd then.

Access Denied

 

Unfortunately, my pc was built in 2011. The mobo is an Asus and the BIOS is probably outdated. Anyway, I am downloading an ISO file from Microsoft for windows 10. Not sure which version it will be, but as long as it's free that's ok. I will then burn it to DVD and finally finish this thing. Thanks for the recommendation.

 

It will install whatever version you had on that hardware. Click skip when it asks for a key, it will auto activate when you get online.

 

Well, I downloaded the windows 10 OS from Microsoft. It was an ISO file which I then burned using a third party app. I then put it into the DVD reader of my pc and waited for it to start loading. Instead I got "bootmgr missing". I don't know what is going on. Evidently the ISO that I downloaded did not have bootmgr on it. This is truly frustrating.

 

The iso file I downloaded from Microsoft was about 3.5GB and was only one large file. I took the USB flash drive with windows 10 pro on it and copied all of the files to my laptop. This folder was about 7GB and had numerous files, including bootmgr, bootmgr.efi, setup.exe, and autorun.inf. I took those mentioned files and put them in a folder with the windows 10 iso file (3.54gb) and burned them to another DVD. I was hoping that this would solve the problem, but it still came up with bootmgr missing. I found an old copy of windows XP and put that into the PC dvd-rom just to see if maybe the PC/BIOS was corrupt. It started up and began trying to install XP until I ejected this disc. Maybe I'm doing something wrong, but I don't know what. Any suggestions would help me out greatly.

 

The ISO file you downloaded is an image file. It's kind of like a ZIP file. When you burn the image contained inside the ISO to the DVD you get all the files and folders on the DVD, not the ISO file itself. The ISO file also contains a bit of hidden code that makes the DVD bootable in a legacy BIOS system so you have to actually burn the DVD from the image the ISO files contains.

How To Burn an ISO File to a DVD, CD or BD [10 Minutes]

Beginner Geek: How to Burn an ISO Image to a Disc

I also have a computer that has boot from USB flash drive in the BIOS options, but I have never been able to get it to boot from a USB flash drive so I have to make DVDs for it.

 

Right now I'm on my third attempt to burn the ISO onto a DVD. This time I followed the instruction to use the windows default Disc Image Burner. I'm hoping that "third time's a charm" holds true. It's a good thing blank DVD media isn't that expensive. I'll follow up if it works. Thanks for the support.

 

I'd recommend just restoring you needed data files and install from scratch. You probably don't want all of that old cruft anyway. Just install the stuff you absolutely need. It will keep your new PC running smoothly, plus it will save you on disk space.

 

Thanks. Well, it finally worked! I had forgotten that I had tried to restore windows from an old backup. It was on the new SSD, so I deleted it. Will try to restore it sometime later after the dust settles down. Thanks again to all those suggestions and recommendations.