Win8.1 to Win10

Joe9090

I am having trouble upgrading a HP Desktop from Win 8.1 to Win10

I have created the Win10 installation media on a USB and can boot with the following options:

UEFI: USB or Windows Boot Manager

or

Legacy Boot: USB

Either USB way took me to Language/Time/Keyboard
and then
Accept Licence Terms

and then

I am given the option to install Windows keeping files but this is not available to me because I cannot boot into Windows 8.1

so

My only option is Custom Install Windows Only which shows details of the HDD with 5 partitions Reserved/System/MSR/Windows/Recovery

But the only partition suitable is Windows but it is not recommended because I will lose system files installing Win10 over it and because it is also a GPT disk.

I have found this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-setup-installing-using-the-mbr-or-gpt-partition-style.

Could someone please confirm what I should do now?

tonyh66

buy a cheap SSD and install windows onto that?

Joe9090

tonyh66 wrote: »

buy a cheap SSD and install windows onto that?

Good idea but it's an all in one so it would not work.

mksysb

Joe9090 wrote: »

Good idea but it's an all in one so it would not work.

Why not?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sMclKIXWjcA

EveryWhere

Joe9090 wrote: »

I am having trouble upgrading a HP Desktop from Win 8.1 to Win10

I have created the Win10 installation media on a USB and can boot with the following options:

UEFI: USB or Windows Boot Manager

or

Legacy Boot: USB

Either USB way took me to Language/Time/Keyboard
and then
Accept Licence Terms

and then

I am given the option to install Windows keeping files but this is not available to me because I cannot boot into Windows 8.1

so

My only option is Custom Install Windows Only which shows details of the HDD with 5 partitions Reserved/System/MSR/Windows/Recovery

But the only partition suitable is Windows but it is not recommended because I will lose system files installing Win10 over it and because it is also a GPT disk.

I have found this https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/windows-setup-installing-using-the-mbr-or-gpt-partition-style.

Could someone please confirm what I should do now?

I don't understand the statement in bold.

Fitting an SSD is usually the best option, as all of your data is left untouched on the old HDD, which you can transfer to your new SSD at leisure.

The other options are to simply upgrade over the top or to delete everything from the old HDD and clean install to it. But upgrading utilising a clean install SSD is the way forward.

sal_III

If you want to upgrade Win 8.1 to 10, you need to boot into your Win 8.1 installation then browse the USB and run the setup from there, from within the Win 8.1. Not booting from the Win 10 USB installation media.

In any case Windows in place upgrade rarely goes well, it's recommended to just back your data and do clean install of the new OS.

Chino

sal_III wrote: »

In any case Windows in place upgrade rarely goes well

Really? My 8.1 to 10 upgrade went fine.

poppellerant

You won't be able to upgrade from 8.1 to 10 unless you run the installer from within 8.1 - if this isn't possible, then you could try repairing your 8.1 installation first. Frankly I think that's making too much work for yourself, when you could just do a clean install of 10 in 30 minutes.

If you wanted to keep files, such as documents, pictures, etc, then you could use the free version of Macrium Reflect to create an image of the hard drive exactly how it stands now, giving you the option to later browse the image and recover what you need to. With an image of the hard drive, boot from the USB that you made, delete any partitions found on the hard drive and do a fresh install of 10.

In my own opinion, the latter of the above would be the quickest and most sensible. If you wanted to make the machine faster, you could forget imaging the hard drive and just install an SSD to install 10 onto. But it doesn't sound like you want to spend any money on the machine.

Joe9090

Many thanks for the excellent replies. I have learnt a lot from them.

Although I could install onto an SSD quite easily I would prefer to use the 1TB hard drive already in the machine. I don't need anything on the hard drive except any drivers that might be needed for Win10. From what you say it appears the Windows Installation USB has everything needed including drivers to install Win10.

How do I go about deleting everything on the HDD before starting the WIN10 install again?

Neil_Jones

If you want nothing on the machine you can remove all the partitions from the setup program, so it just says "unallocated space" and then click on Next. Windows Setup will sort it all out.

poppellerant

Do as Neil Jones said, but only for Drive 0 - just delete any partitions so the entire Drive 0 is just unallocated space. Drive 1 is likely to be your USB drive with the Windows 10 installer on it, so you won't want to touch that.