New
#1
Reloading - retrieving my installed WIN 10 PRO
Hi,
I need help in reloading/retrieving my installed WIN 10 Pro.
HISTORY
Last July I took advantage of the Microsoft offer of the free upgrade to WIN 10. I upgraded from Win 7 PRO to WIN 10 PRO with no problems or error messages ( I had to upgrade a couple of programs WIN 10 said were not compatible with WIN 10). I have been using, and getting familiar with, WIN 10 for the last 2 months with no error messages. Until about a week ago!
I shut down my computer, (a desktop) as usual, by using the “power, shutdown” sequence. No errors were listed before the shut down finished. The next day when I powered ON, I received a message screen that Windows could not boot. There were several suggestions on what to do to solve the problem. None worked and I did not choose to do a clean install -- did not want to have to re-install all of programs upgraded from the previous WIN 7.
The option to get a command prompt did work, ie. I could get a command prompt. To make a long story short, I was able to see the partitions and folders on my hard drives. I was unable to find any references/files related to WIN 10. I was able to see the WIN 7 folders.
I was finally able to boot the “OLD WIN 7 Pro” using the UEFI. I can get the WIN 7 boot screen with the choices boot WIN 7 “normally”, or “last known good” or the three safe boot modes ( safe boot, safe boot with command prompt or safe mode with internet). Any choice ends up in safe mode, but safe mode seems to work, with in the limits of safe mode.
I mention all of the above to show the state of the computer and show that as far as I can tell Win 10 does not reside on my computer. Of course, I may not have looked in all the right places for WIN 10. Is it possible Windows started to install the Anniversary update and something went wrong? I had no indication or screen messages about Windows trying to install an update. Any suggestions are appreciated.
WHAT I WOULD LIKE TO DO -- IF POSSIBLE
Before I did the WIN 10 upgrade, I made a complete disk image of my WIN 7 PRO system. I have the image available and can bring the system back to the WIN 7 PRO state immediately before the WIN.
My question: If I bring the system back to the WIN 7 PRO state, is it possible to do the “Free WIN 7 to WIN 10 upgrade” a second time? I do not remember receiving an WIN 10 product key or any information from Microsoft that verifies my WIN 7 PRO upgrade to WIN 10 PRO. The information I can find indicates the WIN10 PRO upgrade is some how linked to my WIN 7 PRO product key.
So, is there a way to,in effect, re do the “Free WIN 7 to WIN 10” upgrade. I use the word “Free” to identify the path I took to install WIN10. I would expect Microsoft has a way to do what I would like to do; I just need to know the correct procedure. Any suggestions, links or Microsoft pages would be appreciated.
Thanks for your support.