New
#11
Okay... After getting the initial from dalchina, where he mentioned that the 'best approach <would be> to create a Win 10 install disk and proceed from there', which led to believe that no disk would be necessary. Since the PC never even booted into Windows, but only to the troubleshooter, I assumed that the troubleshooter was outside of Windows, and that it was part of the computer BIOS. Which, of course made me think that the troubleshooter would still be available even with a new hard drive. Sadly that seems not to be the case. I (naively, apparently) thought that since Microsoft had moved the product key to the BIOS that they found some method of getting the troubleshooting and recovery there as well. (Everybody stop rolling their eyes). I keep hearing that Microsoft keeps making these things more idiot proof and easier to fix and troubleshoot, etc.....
Well, if the HDD goes bad you still need a disk of some sort. And the manufacturers still refuse to supply them with a purchase. So in my case I'm really worse off than if I'd been running Windows 98. I'd have just fished out the disk, popped it into the DVD drive and reinstalled, then copied my stuff from the backup. Now I have to jump through what seems to be significantly more hoops - and I still don't know what I need in the way of tools. Do I need a flash drive for Macrium, or can I just use blank DVDs. I assume that when I download the Windows 10 iso file that a single DVD will be sufficient for storing the image file?