W10 image after upgrading from Home to Pro?

dalchina said:

Some options to avoid reinstalling an old build with bloatware (tutorials available):

- 'Refresh' Windows- various options, keeping the current build:
- do a clean install of Win 10... that way you also get the current build (now 21H1) if you use the MS media creation tool to create a bootable flash drive, rather than installing an old build and having to upgrade it.

Plus you can recover disk space and delete the factory reset partition - not needed.

Here's the problem. I can't do a clean install. I don't have Windows 10 image and my laptop doesn't have a CD/DVD drive. I checked in the BIOS and my W10 Home key is listed there. I suppose if I contact Lenovo, they might try to sell me the link to download the image file for my laptop.

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NavyLCDR said:

See here:
How to reset your laptop to factory defaults using Lenovo OneKey Recovery (OKR) - Lenovo Support US

Thanks for the link. I checked it out before. My laptop doesn't have that "onekey" recovery option. It seems everything is in Windows. If I need to reinstall Windows, it appears I have to do so within Windows itself and if I can't boot into Windows, I guess I'm SOL unless I have a back-up image from a third party utility and a bootable USB drive.

AddRAM said:

My eyes are weery, why can`t you boot into windows, and why don`t you want to do a repair install of the version you have installed right now.

That would fix any windows issues you may have.

Download Windows 10 (microsoft.com)

As long as you keep your Lenovo recovery partition, you can always restore to factory specs, if you really wanted to do that.

I can boot into Windows, but I get an error message saying Windows cannot repair my installation.

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Try3 said:

Sammy,



1 You can make your own installation disk [on USB].

1.1 Download the ISO - use one of the sources identified in Download Windows 10 ISO File -TenForumsTutorials [one of them, the MS MCT tool, achieves both steps 1.1 & 1.2]

1.2 Create Bootable Installation USB - TenForumsTutorials

2 You can backup & restore your drivers

Backup and Restore Device Drivers - TenForumsTutorials

3 You do not reinstall from within Windows. You boot from the installation USB.

Clean Install - TenForumsTutorials

4 Such as your Macrium Reflect image & boot drive [post #4]. I guess that's what you're referring to here.

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5 The InstallationUSB can also be used for
Custom Install - TenForumsTutorials
Repair Install - TenForumsTutorials ***
Startup Repair - TenForumsTutorials
And a host of other minor tasks since it has a Command prompt and most of the normal Windows commands [old "DOS" commands].

6 *** Repair install notes
- A Repair install is also called an InPlace upgrade and is how many of us do the twice yearly Windows 10 Version updates.
- A Repair install is a repair task not a reinstallation. Your installed applications and data should never be affected even though backups would still be advisable.
- You can also run a Repair install just using the ISO you might have made the InstallUSB from if you had chosen that method.

Denis

Thank you. Bookmarked!

Sammy888 said:

Here's the problem. I can't do a clean install. I don't have Windows 10 image and my laptop doesn't have a CD/DVD drive. I checked in the BIOS and my W10 Home key is listed there. I suppose if I contact Lenovo, they might try to sell me the link to download the image file for my laptop.

I also recommend a Clean install.
Sammy888, you don't need a CD/DVD (ODD) drive. You can build a Win 10 installation USB drive. All you need is a 8G (or bigger) USB drive. Run the MCT - to download Win 10 21h1 files and make the Win 10 installation USB drive.

As you already had Win10 pro installed and running, your computer ID is already stored on M$ servers. This means that you can do a Clean Install, deleting all partitions and install Windows 10 free of the Lenovo bloatware. It will activate.

Windows can be installed in two ways: Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT
To install as Legacy-MBR you must boot the installation drive as Legacy
To install as UEFI-GPT you must boot the installation drive as UEFI.

During POST, press F12 to launch the boot menu. You will see two options for the USB drive. USB UEFI (Name) and USB (Name). Select USB UEFI (Name).
Go to install and delete ALL partitions on the SSD till you have one and only one unallocated space and then proceed.
If you don't want to log using a M$ account, don't connect to the internet during installation.

I had something similar recently. The pro licence should be attached to your Microsoft account. I had to reinstall (clean install) W10 on a laptop that only had a licence for home. I installed pro at install time. When it came to activation and it said I didn’t have a licence there is a section at the bottom of that notification with an arrow which gives options. One says something like “I have changed hardware “. I selected that and it too me to my Microsoft page to add the pro license. Didn’t take long.