Media creation tool does not work.
Downloaded new ISO files
TechBench setup does not work
Burning to DVD starts but ends up giving Bad image errors
Concerned that doing a clean install will loose all my user data
Appreciate all your suggestions but am becoming somewhat frustrated.
Next?
You could use MiniTool Partition Wizard (free) to shrink your current OS partition by about 50GB. Create a new, NTFS 50GB primary partition. Boot from a Windows 10 USB made from the ISO, select custom install, do clean install to the 50GB partition. This will do a clean install an set up dual booting with your existing Windows 8, so you won't lose anything. That will tell you if you have a software problem (probably a driver) that is keeping you from upgrading the Windows 8.1 or a hardware problem.
If the clean install fails too it is either a hardware problem or corrupted ISO file. If it succeeds, then it is a software problem with the Windows 8.
Uninstall or permanently disable the antivirus, antimalware, firewall, disk utility, whatever else non-important that could cause conflict. Load msconfig and disable all non-Microsoft services, just in case, and also disable all startup programs. This is to exclude any software conflict. Then disable in Device Manager any non-used device (audio, SATA/SCSI controller, TV tuner, whatever non-important). Disconnect all your devices, except mouse and keyboard and try again.
Just had Samsung check my computer and they inform me it is not compatible with Windows 10.
Samsung laptop model NP300E5E-A06CA i3 - 3120M CPU, 2.5 GHz, 8 GB ram
Go figure.
Thanks everyone for your support.
Appreciated
Haven't as yet. I currently use a 256 GB SSD drive portioned as (hidden) *:Windows RE Tools (500mb NTFS Data) *:System (300mb Fat32 EFI system partition Active & Boot) *: (128mb reserved) C: (111 GB NTFS operating system - data partition) and D: (120GB NTFS - data partition) as a data drive.
A bit apprehensive as Samsung rep says hidden drives necessary.
Appreciate the suggestion
I got you confused with SteveC. He has a spinner with enough room for an extra partition. You have D: data partition - are your user files such as My Documents moved to that partition? If so that will kill a Windows 10 upgrade.
You can use Macrium Reflect Free to make an image of your current SSD - but you will have to have an external storage device big enough to hold the used space from your SSD. Make sure you create the bootable rescue disk and it works. Then you could try a clean install to the SSD by deleting all the partitions on it and installing to the unallocated space. Or try a clean install on another hard drive or SSD installed in place of your current one. If it failed, you would just restore your SSD image. If it succeeded, you could mount the image file in Macrium Reflect as a drive letter and retrieve files/folders from it.
Just because Samsung says it isn't compatible, the hardware itself might be compatible - either Samsung has software that isn't compatible like their own drivers, or they just don't want to provide customer support for upgrading to Windows 10.
Yes, user files are on D:
I use Macrium for backups to an external WD 1TB network drive.
For fun, when I have few extra moments, I will reformat the original HD and try a clean install.
Will share the results.
No matter what Samsung or other manufacturers want you to believe, any computer with at least 1GHz CPU and 1GB RAM supports Windows 10, as long as CPU supports NX/PAE. They just try to discourage you trying to upgrade in case you are tempted to buy a new computer. Don't listen to them. You need a new computer for Windows 10 if it is Pentium 4 Prescott or older. For anything newer you are OK. You can even patch some system files to bypass compatibility checks and install Windows 10 in a Pentium 4 if you like, but that's another topic.
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