Upgraded from 8.1 to Win 10. Did a clean install, but now problem.

Javarox said:

I'd love to roll back, but it appears that Windows 10 install overwrote my recovery partition and replaced it with a Windows 10 recovery partition.

If you can get your hands on a Windows 8 or 8.1 depending on your pc's original OS you can install it from the iso, it will load your windows 8 key into the install automatically

Yeah, I wish that I knew someone with the disc to install from, or even an .iso, but I don't. No worries, though, I may figure this out yet. Thanks for your help!

Javarox said:

Yeah, I wish that I knew someone with the disc to install from, or even an .iso, but I don't. No worries, though, I may figure this out yet. Thanks for your help!

For Windows 8.1: Create installation media for Windows 8.1 - Windows Help


for some reason i can't find one for Windows 8.0

EziaN said:

For Windows 8.1: Create installation media for Windows 8.1 - Windows Help


for some reason i can't find one for Windows 8.0

Nice! I'll try this and see what happens. Thanks a lot, mate!

Javarox said:

Nice! I'll try this and see what happens. Thanks a lot, mate!

No problem. You have to make sure your pc was born with windows 8.1 and not 8, otherwise your key wont work

EziaN said:

No problem. You have to make sure your pc was born with windows 8.1 and not 8, otherwise your key wont work

Yep, it's a new PC with 8.1 pre-loaded on it. I just noticed that there are two 'recovery' partitions on my hd now. One of them is for the Windows 10. The other, I bet, is for the 8.1. I wish I could tell which was which using the disk management tool in Win 10, but I can't. All I can see is that they're recovery partitions. If I knew which one was the Win10 one, I could delete it, reboot, hit F3 and choose to recover the 8.1 one. Hmm.

Javarox said:

Yep, it's a new PC with 8.1 pre-loaded on it. I just noticed that there are two 'recovery' partitions on my hd now. One of them is for the Windows 10. The other, I bet, is for the 8.1. I wish I could tell which was which using the disk management tool in Win 10, but I can't. All I can see is that they're recovery partitions. If I knew which one was the Win10 one, I could delete it, reboot, hit F3 and choose to recover the 8.1 one. Hmm.

Maybe you can identify them by partition size? Windows 10 recovery partition seems to be 450Mb

EziaN said:

Maybe you can identify them by partition size? Windows 10 recovery partition seems to be 450Mb

Good idea! One of them IS 450Mb. The other is 600Mb. I'll delete the 450Mb and see what happens. Heh, can't do much more damage. I'm also creating a USB boot for Win8.1, using the link you gave above. Just in case. ;-)

Javarox said:

Good idea! One of them IS 450Mb. The other is 600Mb. I'll delete the 450Mb and see what happens. Heh, can't do much more damage. I'm also creating a USB boot for Win8.1, using the link you gave above. Just in case. ;-)

Better safe than sorry right:)

Javarox said:

This is a brand new laptop. Only thing loaded on it was the Windows 8.1 OS. The "Get Windows 10" app said that I qualified for a free upgrade to Windows 10. After reading an article on how to do a clean install of Windows 10, I did the following:

1. Upgraded from Windows 8.1 to Windows 10.
2. Downloaded the Media Creation Tool.
3. Used the MCT to create a bootable USB on a 16GB USB flash drive.
4. Booted from the flash drive, did a clean install of Windows 10 (essentially, formatted the drive to load the OS)
5. During installation, got a window asking for product key. Since the article said to skip this (because Windows would 'remember' my previous activation for this laptop) I did so.
6. Installation completed without a hitch.

Now, however, Windows 10 is acting like I don't have an activated version. I keep getting messages like "You can personalize this PC until it is Activated". But... it WAS activated before I did the clean install. I messed around with the OS, checking out different features, before doing the clean install.

My question is, why is this happening? I tried rolling back to Windows 8 (Pressing F3 on boot) but there is no option to go back to Windows 8.1, only Windows 10.

So, what should/can I do to get around this aggravating issue?

Thanks!

Oops.

To get the free Win 10 upgrade to activate, it has to be installed as an upgrade over an installed, and activated, qualifying OS (7 SP1, 8.1). I believe that you also have to do the kind of upgrade that preserves files, settings, and applications (keep everything) to get 10 to activate.

If that is done once, then you can use the free upgrade to clean install on the same hardware. No license key is needed, and you won't be given one.

I hope that you can find a way to restore 8.1. (Did MSI include some sort of recovery disk? The laptop's manual mentions it as an option.)

You could buy a key from the Microsoft store (in the USA, at least), but it ain't cheap.