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My First Win10 upgrade fail.


bizzybody

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After updating two other desktops and a laptop to Windows 10, the laptop and one desktop from 7 and the other desktop from 8.1, without a problem, and the 7 desktop with only a very non-techy person present - I figured it was time to go for it on *my* primary PC.

 

Ehhh, that didn't go too well. I'd waited for *months* for it to tell me my upgrade was ready, so I found out how to force it to start. After seeing it going along well I went to bed. Got up this morning to find it stuck fast at 76%.

 

So I poked the reset button and got the message that it was restoring my previous Windows. Uh, huh. Sure it was. What it had actually done was frag the BCD. So I got Easy Recovery Essentials for Win 7.

 

That only made it *worse* by wrecking the boot sector, MBR or both. Fortunately for me, I had the Win 7 x64 ISO available and used another computer with ImgBurn (after the burner included on the Easy RE Linux boot disc failed to burn it properly). The automated recovery on that DVD failed too.

 

I finally got it fixed by following the manual  process under Step 3 here https://neosmart.net/wiki/recovering-windows-bootloaderOne thing that does not mention is that by highlighting the loooong string between the {brackets} you can enter it for each step with a right click.

 

Upon booting back to Windows 7, Windows update said the 10 upgrade failed with C1900101-4000D Unknown Error. Oh, soooo helpful, not. Telling me what sort of brick wall it crashed into at 76% would have been nice, so would not trashing/properly restoring the Win 7 critical boot information.

 

I'm now moving a bunch of gigs of stuff off C: to another drive so I'll have 50~60 gig free space, and will also make a recovery disk and other things to make fixing it easier, should the upgrade blow it up again. (This was so much easier to fix in XP when all that was needed was a boot disk with ATTRIB, FDISK and a text editor to edit boot.ini.)

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Hmmm... I've been led to believe that you can get the Win10 ISO direct from MS, burn to DVD (thus saving precious disk space), use the "generic" key for an Upgrade (not via Boot, but within Windows) thus informing MS that you done the deed (locking your PC to the Win10 Install), wipe your HDD, boot the Win10 DVD, and do a "clean" install.

 

In your case, something must have flubbed during the on-HDD Install Package? :unsure:

 

Ennyhoo, the above procedure is what I intend to do with my so-far-little-used Dell Win7 Pro.

 

Side note: Be sure to get the right Win10 for your Upgrade.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10ISO

 

Hmmm - read this.

http://www.msfn.org/2015/07/30/how-to-do-a-clean-install-of-windows-10-from-windows-7-and-8/

...and this -

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/174155-windows-10-upgrade-ripp-off/

...and this -

http://www.msfn.org/board/topic/174164-free-upgrade-to-windows-10-and-downgrade-to-windows-81/

Google

"windows 10" key site:msfn.org

FINALLY... This will clarify the confusion ("How It Works") -and- gives the "generic" keys.

http://www.redmondpie.com/windows-10-product-key-and-activation-how-to-find-it-and-how-it-works/

 

HTH (somewhat)

Edited by submix8c
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Telling me what sort of brick wall it crashed into at 76% would have been nice, so would not trashing/properly restoring the Win 7 critical boot information.

 

You sure it was stuck?  I only mention that because from what I recall it normally sticks at certain percentage points rather than counting up continuously.  Granted, if the data is all on your drive it shouldn't stall waiting for the network.

 

Having less than 50 GB of free space could be a problem.  I'd suggest making as much as possible available.

 

At this point why not do a fresh, clean install from a disk or ISO?  Back up all your data and format the drive during install.

 

-Noel

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Upgrade It will copy your Windows to Windows.old so that will require a lot of disk space

Open explorer and right click on C and see how big it is

 

This weekend updating an in laws I had to use this to clean a Win 7 and it removed about 32gb of temp stuff http://joshcellsoftwares.com/products/uncleaner/

Temp dir was over 30gb by itself after all them years never cleaning

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Telling me what sort of brick wall it crashed into at 76% would have been nice, so would not trashing/properly restoring the Win 7 critical boot information.

 

You sure it was stuck?  I only mention that because from what I recall it normally sticks at certain percentage points rather than counting up continuously.  Granted, if the data is all on your drive it shouldn't stall waiting for the network.

 

Having less than 50 GB of free space could be a problem.  I'd suggest making as much as possible available.

 

At this point why not do a fresh, clean install from a disk or ISO?  Back up all your data and format the drive during install.

 

-Noel

 

 

Yes, most definitely stuck. I had been up at some point during the night and checked on it, and in the morning the screen display hadn't changed. It doesn't/shouldn't take that long for the upgrade to complete.

 

Currently 71.8 gig free on C: I've downloaded and burned the x64 Win10 ISO.

 

One thing I do wonder about being a potential problem is when I upgraded to 7.1 from XP on this PC I used PC Mover to transplant a lot of my installed software. Most of what I moved with it "just worked". A few had to be reinstalled to make them work on 7.1. Don't know if there may be something in the Registry or elsewhere leftover from XP to cause trouble.

 

I have a 1TB drive I could use to do a clean Win10 install onto, which should work if MS has the info that this computer gets a freebie.

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Another suggestion...  Rather than reuse an old HDD, consider buying a nice (e.g., 512 GB or even 1 TB) SSD.  If you're going to do a whole new install anyway, maybe this is a good time to start with better hardware.

 

If you're not running Windows from an SSD (or even an array of them) you haven't lived.  :)

 

-Noel

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