48 replies to this topic

[Zombie]

silencer_pl, on 12 June 2016 - 10:14 PM, said:

Zombie. You have two options, both require same deal:

A) Get soft that extracts windows key. There is no official soft through MS, and only 3rd parties. I have one somewhere too if you can't google it.
B) Either Get WIN7 key and install WIN7 again. You should seek Win 7 Media Creation Tool on MS sites or just any ISO.
C) Upgrade to W10, get the key, download ISO using Media Creation Tool. Do clean install on SSD.

Alternatively just buy Windows it's not super expensive.

I am planning on upgrading to Windows 10 as soon as I sort out migrating Win 7 over to the SSD. I do not want to upgrade to Win 10 first because I want to still have a copy of Win 7 to fall back on in case of problems.

I did run into some issues with the SSD last night. While looking at it in the Win 7 Disk Management utility, there are 5(!) partitions on the SSD (in this order): a 701MB unallocated block, a 400MB "Recovery Partition", a 300MB "EFI System Partition", a 213.53GB RAW Primary Partition (E: Volume), and finally a 23.45GB unallocated partition. I tried to delete the 400MB Recovery Partition on it as the option isn't grayed out, but it comes up with a message saying that the partition wasn't created by windows and might have data from another OS on it. Don't care, click Yes to delete the partition and it says it couldn't be performed because of a device I/O error. Can't delete the 300MB EFI partition as the option is grayed out, Can't delete the RAW primary partition either (or even change it to NTFS). I really don't care too much about the 701MB, 400MB and 300MB partitions existing as those are chump change, but having that 23+GB unallocated chunk at the end is annoying because it's so big and right next to the primary partition (it would be ripe for a merge).

So are these partitions necessary and is there a way to delete them all (or at least merge the 2 unallocated chunks into the primary partition? I assume I need the SSD drive in NTFS format, so is there a way to do this? Windows can't seem to do the format.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

You need to use something better than windows disk management. And no you do not need those partitions. I have only 2 partitions on my SSD, which is one for System  and other for games and other stuff that should stay upon format.
And If you upgrade to W10 from W7/8, you have 30 days of fallback:

http://windows.micro...7-or-windows-81

So you just can upgrade to W10, do a month check and then you could do a clean install.

[Zombie]

silencer_pl, on 13 June 2016 - 09:52 PM, said:

You need to use something better than windows disk management. And no you do not need those partitions. I have only 2 partitions on my SSD, which is one for System  and other for games and other stuff that should stay upon format.

Any suggestions for a program to accomplish this? As before, I'm looking at the cheapest alternative that does the job.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

MiniTool Partition Wizard. I think I've used it before.

http://download.cnet...4-10962200.html

Or just google Partition Manager Free.

[silencer_pl]

Also about migration to W10 with fallback. Remember this old thing called Norton Ghost? That's another alternative for your fallback. Though I'm not sure when upgrading to W10 your W7 key becomes invalid in W7

[Zombie]

Ran the MiniTool Partition Wizard, and it looks like it worked. Though, when I tried to format it in Windows no dice - it just hung (must've let it sit for 3+ hours to make sure I wasn't impatient). Can't change file format to NTFS either, or at least I'm out of options figuring out a way to do it. Just for giggles, I looked at the SSD in the Disk Management tool for Win 7, and it still shows those extra partitions. (Top part is the Win 7 Disk Management tool, and bottom is the MiniTool Partition Wizard):



So either the Disk Management tool is reporting the stats wrong (this seems rather unlikely as nothing changed even after I ran the MiniTool), or the MiniTool is reporting it wrong, or the drive is bugged. Is there a way to tell is a SSD is messed up? If worse comes to worse, I can always return it and get a different one.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

Well, at this point I'm out of any advice. Can you format that partition at all in the mini tool ?

Last thing I would do is, insert Windows DVD, boot up from DVD try to proceed as normal installation and choose disk management from there. Remove all partitions from SSD. But you need to have that disk, which I presume you do not have.

[Zombie]

silencer_pl, on 15 June 2016 - 06:37 AM, said:

Well, at this point I'm out of any advice. Can you format that partition at all in the mini tool ?

Nope, the option is grayed out. And windows can't complete it either.

While looking at the MiniTool, I found out that the partition is 0xEE EFI GPT (can't change it to NTFS). Did a cursory search and it looks like it was used in a Linux system possibly. Have no idea if there is a fix for this.

silencer_pl, on 15 June 2016 - 06:37 AM, said:

Last thing I would do is, insert Windows DVD, boot up from DVD try to proceed as normal installation and choose disk management from there. Remove all partitions from SSD. But you need to have that disk, which I presume you do not have.

I do not have any Windows disks (well, I do have the XP disks from my previous system yet, just in case I want to create a rig specific for testing X-COM UFO, ahem, ). But yeah, no Vista or Win 7 disks. My dad might have the disk though, will have to check. Even if he does, I doubt it'll work.

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

You can always download iso. Doesn't have to be legit, just as long as you could enter installation process. Though disk management there is pretty simple I think it has more power when managing partitions.
Also there is always CD Linux.

[Zombie]

Meh, I think I'll throw in the towel on this one. Been dealing with one headache and nightmare after another for the last two weeks straight. At this point, I need to get this sorted STAT as I'm not sure how long my current HDD will last. Sent the seller a message on eBay asking for help or if I can return it (still within the 30 days he gives), so we'll see.

If worse comes to worse, I'll just run over to Best Buy, purchase a new SSD there, and let the Geek Squad deal with it.

- Zombie

[ñΩxicity]

*Cough* Told ya so *Cough*

[NKF]

It might be easier to buy a new machine entirely and try to salvage what you can off the old hard drive with a USB 2.0 to IDE/Sata cable. That's what I'm planning to do to access the hard drive I saved off my old 80486 (don't laugh). I doubt there's anything fantastic on it, but it seems to me to be the most cost effective solution for my situation at the moment.

- NKF

[Zombie]

According to the seller, he did a check disk and looked at the drive with the Win 10 disk management tool before putting it up for sale and all was fine. Apparently, certain newer formats aren't recognizable by earlier Win versions.

I'm not ready to give up this laptop yet, it's got a lot of good life left in it, has decent processing power, good graphics, 8gb of ram, backlit keyboard & screen etc. The only thing that's basically wrong with it is the HDD. I did look at getting a newer system a couple months ago, but to get something close to mine I'd need to plop down at least $400-500 to get a used machine. Not worth it (at least not yet).

- Zombie

[Zombie]

Well, I transferred everything over to the SSD last night (finally!). I used the Apricorn migration software because the MiniTool Partition Wizard program always complained something was wrong and would force me into a migration upon startup (which would leave me to twiddle my thumbs for a couple hours while it finished)... at least with Apricorn I could use my computer while it was running to pass the time. Anyhow, there was a slight issue after it was complete because now there was 3 partitions instead of 2. Here again, MiniTool Partition Wizard wasn't any help as merging partitions is a premium feature. Luckily Win 7 Disk Management came to the rescue!

Today I took out my failing drive and stuffed in the SSD to see if everything worked (pro tip: leave the cover off the computer until you are sure you are good). Yup! I was pretty impressed with the load times of windows and a few other programs. Tomorrow if I have time I'll probably upgrade to Win 10 and then I should hopefully be set for a while. Thanks for the help everyone!

- Zombie

[silencer_pl]

Congratulations. You have finally made it.

[Zombie]

Ran into a slight (actually, huge) issue the other day when I tried to upgrade to Windows 10. Apparently, the Win 10 upgrade program only looks in the first partition for your local copy of Win 7 or 8, if your copy resides elsewhere, it will not recognize it. (At least, I think this is what was meant). Thought I could maybe fix it by merging the two partitions on my SSD, but the MiniTool Wizard doesn't allow merging (ah, crippleware). So it looks like I can't upgrade to Win 10 anyway. And I'm not about to go searching for possible solutions as this is Microsoft's problem, not mine.

For reference, the error code the upgrade program gives is: 80070002.

- Zombie

[Kret]

This is why I'm avoiding the upgrade and getting ready for a fresh install instead. If you still would like to try to get win10 installed the you could just use their media cretion tool to create an installation DVD for it. As long as you have the key at hand or you can recover it from the registry you'll be set.

[Zombie]

I don't have the key as I purchased this laptop used and the owner upgraded it from Vista to Win 7 pro. No Windows disks were included. Which is part of the reason why I'd like to upgrade to Win 10 as then I'll have a "stable" OS. How do I find the key in the registry?

- Zombie

[ñΩxicity]

Zombie, on 21 July 2016 - 02:50 AM, said:

I don't have the key as I purchased this laptop used and the owner upgraded it from Vista to Win 7 pro. No Windows disks were included. Which is part of the reason why I'd like to upgrade to Win 10 as then I'll have a "stable" OS. How do I find the key in the registry?

- Zombie

If you go to Control Panel and click on System it should be listed at the bottom of that screen.

-NoX

[Kret]

Searching around I did find a script somone made that will display the Windows Key on screen for you to note it down, and as for the installation discs, you can easely create one for future use with MS tool found here https://www.microsof...load/windows10.

As for the vbs script, I can't find the actual page but I can just paste the code here:

Set WshShell = CreateObject("WScript.Shell")
MsgBox ConvertToKey(WshShell.RegRead("HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\DigitalProductId"))
Function ConvertToKey(Key)
Const KeyOffset = 52
i = 28
Chars = "BCDFGHJKMPQRTVWXY2346789"
Do
Cur = 0
x = 14
Do
Cur = Cur * 256
Cur = Key(x + KeyOffset) + Cur
Key(x + KeyOffset) = (Cur \ 24) And 255
Cur = Cur Mod 24
x = x -1
Loop While x >= 0
i = i -1
KeyOutput = Mid(Chars, Cur + 1, 1) & KeyOutput
If (((29 - i) Mod 6) = 0) And (i <> -1) Then
i = i -1
KeyOutput = "-" & KeyOutput
End If
Loop While i >= 0
ConvertToKey = KeyOutput
End Function

The reason for the code is because the key is not stored as plain text but in a binary value and jumbled(?)
Oh, forgot to mention that when saving the script file, remember to change the extension to .vbs
And I also should mention that I've only tried this with Windows 7, but it should most likely work with both 8 and 10 (wishful thinking?)