Getting Win10 free upgrade installed on new drive

BJB · 24 Aug 2015

Greetings,

I've researched this but have a bit of a unique situation. I am running windows 7 on a SATA2 SSD but I plan to upgrade to a PCIe SSD when I install Windows 10. Up until now I thought I would have to spring for a new OEM windows 10 disk, however I wonder if this will work? To be clear I am not trying to dual boot.

So say I get Windows 7 all happily updated on my old SSD and I get the magic Windows 10 upgrade notification icon. Then I install my fresh new PCIe SSD and reboot.

I will be booted into Windows 7 with a new, unformatted (but recognized) new drive while running Windows 7 on my old drive.

If I start the free upgrade process, will it let me choose that new drive as my installation location for Windows 10? Or does that break the rules of changing something in the system....

Thanks for any thoughts.

BJB

Boozad · 24 Aug 2015

Short answer: No. You'd have to upgrade the current OS (7 in this case) on the drive it's installed on, overwriting the existing OS.

bobkn · 24 Aug 2015

I believe that to get 10 to activate, it must be installed as an upgrade over a qualifying OS.

I'm not certain, but I also think that you could then remove the old SSD, install the new one, and clean install 10 on the new SSD, from a bootable USB drive or DVD. (Press the little "skip" button when the installer asks for a key.) I believe that the result will activate online. (You've changed your hardware, but not enough to make the activation fail. If it does fail, activate by telephone.)

If you have a reason to preserve Windows 7 on you old SSD, I suggest that instead you image it and later restore the image. (That'd be a really good idea anyway, in case the 10 upgrade fails spectacularly.) However, it'd be against the license agreement to continue to run 7 after you've used it to qualify an upgrade to 10.

BJB · 24 Aug 2015

Thanks to you both for the input.

I can certainly make an image of my old SSD...no problem there. And for prior windows version, a hard drive change normally re-activated.

Hmmm, but just remembered I have an OEM version of Windows 7....so sigh...even though 10 would be on the same PC which sticks with the OEM license, I'll need to check out those upgrade possibilities. Glad I remembered that!

Thanks again,

BJB

CountMike · 25 Aug 2015

As soon as you upgrade from a qualifying windows on same MB and it's activated, you can clean install windows 10 on any disk you want as long as it's on same MB (that's what license is tied to).
If that W7 is OEM for that computer, you can upgrade it to W10 and when it activates, remove that SSD and install W10 on new one. Of course , you'll end up with W10 with OEM license.

DeaconFrost · 25 Aug 2015

Just installed 7, the upgrade to 10 on the old drive. Once you can boot to Windows 10 and see that it is activated, swap the drives and do a clean install on the new SSD. The hard drive has never been part of the "computer" that can't be changed under OEM licenses. It's easy to figure out what you can and can't do if you just assume this free license is OEM.

As long as the other components stay the same, specifically the motherboard, you'll be fine.

Mark Phelps · 25 Aug 2015

I'm not certain, but I also think that you could then remove the old SSD, install the new one, and clean install 10 on the new SSD, from a bootable USB drive or DVD.

I can confirm this to be true because I've done the same thing -- to "migrate" Win10 from one drive to another in the same PC.

Trapper · 26 Aug 2015

Hi All.
After searching many threads this seems to be the most appropriate thread.

I have W7 64 Pro retail installed and upgraded to W10, after a few days the profiles started to fail, lost so many functions and it had a few other niggles so I reverted back to the reliability and stability of W7. W10 was activated during it's troubled, but short, life.

Now, I have a spare 279gb hard drive (Drive E disk 2 as below) sitting in the PC doing nothing so am thinking why not put W10 on that?
The 'rig' specs have been registered - MB/CPU/Graphics card - so no changes to my system.

If I removed the W7 HD, what method would be best to install W10 on the unused HD? I have printed out about every install tutorial but not being very knowledgeable on the subject would welcome your advice. And assuming that the install worked then replace my W7 HD would I then be able to dual boot? Keeping my W7 active while exploring the virtues or otherwise of W10.
Disk management as below. Didn't know about the un-allocated space on C!!