Windows 10 Clean Install (1 Viewer)

[DBK]

Like many folk on here my PC upgraded itself to Windows 10 last year which I was happy with but then a major update came out, the Anniversary edition as it is sometimes called but this simply wouldn't install on my machine. Installation just froze whatever I did.

I ignored this problem as after each frozen installation it would restore the original installation and the problem went away after it stopped trying to update itself.

Then, as you do, I decided to upgrade my machine by fitting an SSD drive in place of the current 1TB hard disc. After a quick read of a few reviews I chose a 500MB jobbie from Samsung and £144 lighter fitted it a couple of days ago.

The problem, which is what this Thread is about, is I didn't have a product key and my original Windows 7 Pro was an OEM version which has limitations on hardware changes. Accepting the worst case would be having to shell out for a "proper" version on Windows 10 I went ahead with the installation.

I had downloaded the Windows 10 iso file and burned it to a DVD. I had earlier tried creating a bootable USB using the file you can download from Microsoft but whatever I did I couldn't get the PC to boot from it. All the settings were correct in the BIOS but it just wouldn't work, hence the DVD.

The SSD drive came with a CD which had a facility to clone your existing drive but I wanted to do a clean install so I disconnected the HD, connected the SSD, inserted the DVD and away it went. Installation took an hour or so, I thought it would be much faster with the SSD but it wasn't.

When all was working it announced it had a major upgrade to download, which it did and this was the 4GB Anniversary update. Why the iso file I downloaded from MS wasn't the latest version of W10 is a mystery.

After several more cups of tea I had a working Windows 10 PC and on inspection it told me it was activated. During the first stage of installation it asks you to enter a product key but there is also the option, which I chose, to click "I don't have a product key". I had read that you may have to activate by telephone but this wasn't required, it just registered itself online. I've no idea how it did this given I had changed the drive on the PC so there was no copy of the original W10 upgrade available.

Of course the catch is all my data was still on the original HD so I reconnected it and rebooted. At this point I made a mistake I think. The PC booted up using the HD not the SSD. I think I should have changed the BIOS settings to put the SSD above the HD but I didn't. Not realising there was a problem I went ahead and copied over the data, which was fairly quick with speeds of over 100MB/s at times.

When finished I disconnected the HD and rebooted again. Zippo. No bootable drive found.

Without going into boring detail the SSD drive was no longer bootable or even visible in the BIOS. In the end I had to reformat it using the utility which came with the drive CD which wasn't a simple exercise. You have to create a bootable DOS DVD and unfreeze the drive by disconnecting the power cable only while it is switched on.

So I set about reinstalling W10 again, going through the 4GB download again.

I then connected the original HD using an external drive case and USB cable. Data transfer was a tad slower of course but we are all now sorted.

Phew!

Lessons learned were you can do a clean install of W10 without a product key and be careful having two bootable drives in the same machine.

 

[Riverbankannie]

Ha, I knew I was right not to upgrade to Windows 10.
The whole thing is madness isn't it, I hope I can carry on with Windows 7 for the life of my laptop.

 

[icantremember]

My head hurts now.

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[WillinFrance]

Pleased I had to buy a new PC last year after a motherboard failure with a brand new install of Windows 10, never had a problem with it, but heard many horror stories of the upgrade version.
Sounds like you have some patience, and managed in the end!!

 

[hilldweller]

Ha, I knew I was right not to upgrade to Windows 10.

I've done two here, this PC being one, it's OK but a whole different beast to earlier windows, this one is out to get your money.

 

[Bailey58]

Can you run that by me again?

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[icantremember]

I've done two here, this PC being one, it's OK but a whole different beast to earlier windows, this one is out to get your money.

I, or should say my son, upgraded my laptop to W10 from W7 last year and apart from a wifi conflict (solved by replacing wifi card) have experienced no other problems.

 

[DBK]

It all now works but then I like trying new things. I guess I am what they all an "early adopter" which is a phrase which could be taken as describing someone who doesn't learn from experience.

 

[hilldweller]

You downloaded 4G of windows and you fitted a 500MB SSD, so how can that work ?

Was that 500GB ?

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[DBK]

You downloaded 4G of windows and you fitted a 500MB SSD, so how can that work ?

Was that 500GB ?

Yes! Just another typo by me.
Though the 4GB download inflates to around 50GB when it installs itself. You can get away with a smaller SSD if you configure things so data is stored on a HD but I wanted to keep everything on the same drive.

 

[rosalan]

I am totally humbled by all of this and am somewhat surprised that having bought my present machine just as Windows 8 came out and having been upgraded to Windows 10, that it all works perfectly.
The only problems I have had were, I was told, in having SpyBot, Ccleaner and AVG while my machine already has its own Windows Defender. The 'extras' were removed and all has worked well ever since. Windows 10? Excellent!

 

[hilldweller]

Yes! Just another typo by me.

Not surprised because you of all people will know that little block contains a minimum of 500,000,000,000 x 8 = 4,000,000,000,000 transistors.

If you filled one cell per second it would take you 127,000 years to complete the job. Mind blowing.

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[Gromett]

I have ordered my new 500Gb samsung 850 SSD today. Fortunately I have linux on my system so it will only take 10 minutes to install max. Then another 5 minutes to copy my data/programs across.

So glad I am out of the Microsoft club.

This is the 500GB hard disk I ordered I am guessing it is the same as yours. I looked for one that would saturate the SATA3 interface.

I also ordered this 4 disk hot swap dock that fits into a 5¼ drive bay. I have a couple of other SSD's and normal 2.5" hard drives so this will make backups etc easier. It looks really neat and should help me get organised.

I currently have 2 x 4TB hard drives, 1 x 2TB hard drive and a 120GB SSD in my system. I decided to get organised and have bought myself an 8TB archival drive. It was dirt cheap at only £250. But it is SMR so no good for normal use. But fantastic for media that you don't write to after the initial save. So great for photos, videos and music files.

I will remove the 3 big hard drives after copying the data across. Then use the 2 x 4TB hard drives to back up the archive drive. Got this hot swap drive bay for the 3.5" disks.

So in my system I will have the 500GB SSD for the OS/Programs and working data. Then the 8TB for Archive/Media. I can then swap out the large 3.5" hard drives to do backups of the 8TB drive.

As I have a couple of internal SSD's I decided I should use them for when I am away in the Motorhome and not on hookup. So bought this. This will allow me to connect the 2.5" SSD's to my laptop.

The plan is I put the 2.5" SSD into my main computers hot swap dock. Copy the movies/TV series from the Archive drive to the SSD. Then remove the SSD and connect it to the adapter which I then can connect to my laptop for viewing when away.

I then got a bit concerned about having all these hard drives floating around unprotected Link Removed as well. A pretty nice looking storage box that will hold 4 x 3.5" hard drives and 2 x 2.5" hard drives and has a space to fit my USB stick folder.

Anyway, That is the plan. I have a funny feeling copying 8TB (ish) of data is going to take longer than your windows install though I decided to do this because the hard drives generate a bit of heat which causes the fans to go faster and I hate the noise of a hovercraft going off in my small van. It will also by nice to have an additional backup. Plus my 120GB SSD drive is very old and very slow in comparison to modern ones. So a major speed boost as well

 

[Gromett]

Holy Crap!!! Just got an email from DPD they are delivering tomorrow (Sunday) Brilliant

 

[DBK]

I have ordered my new 500Gb samsung 850 SSD today. Fortunately I have linux on my system so it will only take 10 minutes to install max. Then another 5 minutes to copy my data/programs across.

So glad I am out of the Microsoft club.

This is the 500GB hard disk I ordered I am guessing it is the same as yours. I looked for one that would saturate the SATA3 interface.

I also ordered this 4 disk hot swap dock that fits into a 5¼ drive bay. I have a couple of other SSD's and normal 2.5" hard drives so this will make backups etc easier. It looks really neat and should help me get organised.

I currently have 2 x 4TB hard drives, 1 x 2TB hard drive and a 120GB SSD in my system. I decided to get organised and have bought myself an 8TB archival drive. It was dirt cheap at only £250. But it is SMR so no good for normal use. But fantastic for media that you don't write to after the initial save. So great for photos, videos and music files.

I will remove the 3 big hard drives after copying the data across. Then use the 2 x 4TB hard drives to back up the archive drive. Got this hot swap drive bay for the 3.5" disks.

So in my system I will have the 500GB SSD for the OS/Programs and working data. Then the 8TB for Archive/Media. I can then swap out the large 3.5" hard drives to do backups of the 8TB drive.

As I have a couple of internal SSD's I decided I should use them for when I am away in the Motorhome and not on hookup. So bought this. This will allow me to connect the 2.5" SSD's to my laptop.

The plan is I put the 2.5" SSD into my main computers hot swap dock. Copy the movies/TV series from the Archive drive to the SSD. Then remove the SSD and connect it to the adapter which I then can connect to my laptop for viewing when away.

I then got a bit concerned about having all these hard drives floating around unprotected Link Removed as well. A pretty nice looking storage box that will hold 4 x 3.5" hard drives and 2 x 2.5" hard drives and has a space to fit my USB stick folder.

Anyway, That is the plan. I have a funny feeling copying 8TB (ish) of data is going to take longer than your windows install though I decided to do this because the hard drives generate a bit of heat which causes the fans to go faster and I hate the noise of a hovercraft going off in my small van. It will also by nice to have an additional backup. Plus my 120GB SSD drive is very old and very slow in comparison to modern ones. So a major speed boost as well

You are probably aware of this although I wasn't, being a bit behind the curve these days. My BIOS settings were for IDE for the hard drives but for best performance you are supposed to to change to AHCI before installing the SSD. Modern hard drives are supposed to be compatible with this but might be worth checking your archival drive.
And yes, that was the Samsung drive I bought. The only problem I had was the caddy I bought to mount it in wasn't very well made. I've now read the reviews on it and others have reported it isn't quite the right size too. It works but it was a fiddle getting the screws through holes which were drilled in the wrong place. It was the one made by a company called Akasa.

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[Gromett]

You are probably aware of this although I wasn't, being a bit behind the curve these days. My BIOS settings were for IDE for the hard drives but for best performance you are supposed to to change to AHCI before installing the SSD. Modern hard drives are supposed to be compatible with this but might be worth checking your archival drive.
And yes, that was the Samsung drive I bought. The only problem I had was the caddy I bought to mount it in wasn't very well made. I've now read the reviews on it and others have reported it isn't quite the right size too. It works but it was a fiddle getting the screws through holes which were drilled in the wrong place. It was the one made by a company called Akasa.

Yes I am aware of AHCI and already have that set in my BIOS for my existing drives. Thanks for the tip though. I haven't had a PATA(IDE) drive for well over 10 years now. I used to keep up with the latest technology when I had my hosting company and quickly moved over to SATA drives when SATA2 came out in 2004. The 3Gb/s was a major speed boost for my servers back then.

I am currently planning my motherboard/cpu upgrade. The new NVMe drives support 4x PCIe ports. That is effectively 4 x SATA3 speed and the drives can saturate all 4 of those channels. So it will be a jump from around the 550MB/s to 2400MB/s which will make loading the OS and software so much quicker.

Not sure I will notice all the speed increase because even on my SATA2 slow SSD drive I have currently OpenOffice loads in well under a second. But that's linux for you. My current drive only does about 160MB/s so I am not even getting even the maximum out of a SATA2 Port. The new drive will be going into my SATA3 ports though so I will be 4 times faster even with this new drive

Exciting times

 

[hilldweller]

I have ordered my new 500Gb samsung 850 SSD today. Fortunately I have linux on my system so it will only take 10 minutes to install max. Then another 5 minutes to copy my data/programs across.

So glad I am out of the Microsoft club.

I'm beginning to see your point now with the way M$ is shifting in the direction of Apple, "we are in charge and milk them for all they've got".

I had the old M$ Freecell on this W7 machine, when W10 appeared it had vanished, instead I found new M$ card games which keep offering upgrades to premium versions. And I no longer have proper control of the machine and the new BIOS forced us.

They bullied us into taking W10, which works fine. They dropped W10 AU in without a simple "please can we". God knows what the many many upgrades since have installed.

Next to this PC is a Raspberry Pi, I keep tinkering with Linux. Even the old V2 is good enough for FUN. V3 is probably all FUNsters need in a PC and for £30.

 

[xulih]

You will find that like all the other windohs versions since XP are all the same under the skin, win10 no exception just a new skin with apps controlling all the basic parts of the OS, dig deep enough and you will find all the control utilities are there just hidden from view so microsoft can force you to use your computer as they want you too not as you want to yourself, just like Apple.

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[Gromett]

The things you need to be watching out for with Microsoft going forward is that they want to change their business model to a subscription based one.
My guess is that eventually the OS will be free, and they will only allow you to install stuff from their App Store. They will say this is so they can ensure security but it is so they can lock down everything and take a cut. They are also increasing their telemetry to a point where it is dangerous. Link this in with their own ad network and Bing...

In the future you may get windows for free, but all the software you want from them will have to be bought through the App store and will be on a subscription. You won't buy software to own anymore. This is the way most of the larger companies are going and Microsoft has a huge amount of inertia to overcome so it won't happen overnight. It will be chipped away a bit at a time. A bit like putting a frog in a pot and slowly increasing the temperature. The little bits won't hurt individually but the direction of travel is not good.

The reason I believe all this, is that Microsoft are taking a battering from things like the Chrome Books which already operate on this basis. They are also looking at Apples business methods. Chrome books can now or will shortly allow you to run all Android apps. So you have basically a laptop that can run all android apps as well. People are buying them in huge numbers.

The first signs of this taking effect are the recently announced Windows Cloud version.

https://mspoweruser.com/early-version-of-windows-10-cloud-leaks/

They will roll this out and it will be the latest thing to keep you secure, eventually they will raise the price or simply stop providing other versions of windows would be my guess.

Some third party app stores such as steam are already worried about this.

Steam's boss for instance is worried that MS will eventually drop win32 support making those games nigh on impossible.

MS are already taking steps in this direction on the software front.
https://arstechnica.co.uk/gaming/20...-like-restrictions-on-windows-store-pc-games/

Combine windows app store with windows cloud and the direction of travel is clear. Over the next 5-10 years I can see that linux will be the only OS left that leaves you in control of your own computer.

Oh and did you know MS tried to prevent Linux installs on all x86 platforms using UEFI and secure boot. That was a fight and a half.

 

[hilldweller]

Combine windows app store with windows cloud and the direction of travel is clear. Over the next 5-10 years I can see that linux will be the only OS left that leaves you in control of your own computer.

Oh and did you know MS tried to prevent Linux installs on all x86 platforms using UEFI and secure boot. That was a fight and a half.

You are preaching to the converted here. I did not know about UEFI, my guess was it was a CIA back door so now my view is CIA ( the spooks in general ) wanting to kill off "freedom" OSs.

Will Linux survive is the question. It's a rotten old world controlled by computers, in reality the security services need to own it for all our sakes long term so the more acceptable group of dictators control us rather than the terrorists.

I am convinced that Terminator is not fiction it's clairvoyance. The fighting drones are alive and well in workshops all over the world and we regularly see the crude Mk1s on TV news and YouTube.

 

[Gellyneck]

Why the iso file I downloaded from MS wasn't the latest version of W10 is a mystery.
Lessons learned were you can do a clean install of W10 without a product key and be careful having two bootable drives in the same machine.

I think both the "original" build of Win 10 (1507 \ 1511?) and the "Anniversary" build (1611?) can still be downloaded from MS. Well they were Novemberish time last year.
The desktop I'm using just now dual-boots Win 7 Pro and Win 10 Pro from the same SSD using Windows boot loader. Same Samsung SSD as yourself.
However the desktop sitting next to it dual-boots Win 7 Pro and Linux Mint 18.1 installed on separate SATA HDD's using GRUB boot loader.
All are 64bit editions and no issues with either machine (as yet!).

As Gromett says MS are moving inexorably towards a subscription service for their main products. Once that happens I'll be dropping both Windows and Office. Already retiring Office 2007 to be followed by 2010 shortly and focusing entirely on LibreOffice, was dabbling with WPS Office but moving on again, which is looking good in release candidate version 5.3.0.

Oh, and the Windows 10 install hasn't been updated to Anniversary as yet given the potential issues you describe.

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[Lorryman100]

@Gromett; Download the latest NVMe drivers from Samsung as that is the best one for SSD speed just now as the Windows 10 generic driver does not cater for the faster speeds of the newer M.2 format cards. I have 2 fitted in my system, one via a dedicated M.2 slot on the motherboard and another via an adaptor card using a PCIe slot. I also use an Intel 750 SSD again this uses a PCIe slot on the motherboard. The below pic was a benchmark for my SSD drives and you can see that the Samsung EVO 960 Pro NVMe (C: drive Windows boot disc) gets 3.1GB/s read speed using the motherboards M.2 slot. The G: drive is a Samsung SM961 NVMe SSD using an adaptor card and plugged into a x16 PCIe slot which gives 3.4GB/s read speeds. The E; drive is the Intel 750 SSD which is plugged into a x4 PCIe slot which is running at half speed as it only gets 1.6GB/s read speeds.

By plugging the intel 750 into a PCIe x16 slot the speed is increased slightly to 2.3GB/s

The F: drive in the first pic and the C: drive in the second pic are the speeds for the Samsung 850 SSD.

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Also the number of available PCIe channels on the motherboard as well as processor type, number of cores, threads etc determine the speed of the drives.

 

[Gromett]

Will Linux survive is the question.

It can't be killed. It runs pretty much every stock exchange in the world, 90%+ of all smartphones are running it. Pretty much every modern TV and router runs it. All bar 1 of the top 500 supercomputers in the world run it (I believe there is 1 BSD supercomputer in the top 500). It run pretty much all of the internet, from Facebook, google, youtube and wikipedia not to mention amazon, ebay, yahoo, baidu and millions of blogs running wordpress. The only place is hasn't really conquered is the desktop. The internet, most global communications and most big businesses now rely on Linux. It is not a toy operating system like some people seem to think.

For example, I am about to do a fresh install for the first time in 4 years. I will be using a filesystem called BTRFS for the main partitions and the data partition because it has data protection features that are not available freely anywhere else. BTRFS is the filesystem facebook uses. I will be using the EXT4 FS for my Database and VM partitions as they are more performant for that work load. Under windows you are pretty much stuck with NTFS which although an improvement on FAT32 is still ancient. Under windows it is a case of this is what we provide use it or use nothing. Under Linux you can choose from 100's if not 1,000's of different components to suite your absolute requirements.

When some bright spark in the linux community decides to change the desktop environment so that it works differently, somone will fork the original version and continue developing it. So we don't get massive shocks to the system like the change from Windows 7 to Window 8 where everything looked and worked differently.

That for me is the beauty of Linux. You can either stick with the same old stuff, or you can go all out for the most modern technology that is the best for what you want to do. Or you can do a mix. When Linux fans say it is free. They don't mean free as in cost, they mean free as in you are free to do absolutely and exactly what you want with it without some overlord at a large corporation changing things or removing features. It also means free from oversight. There is no monitoring built into the Linux Kernel at all.

PS: if you are curious about what BTRFS is, I know there won't be many. This guy runs over the feature set and how it is being developed at multiple companies and fed upstream.

 

[Gromett]

Download the latest NVMe drivers from Samsung as that is the best one for SSD speed just now as the Windows 10 generic driver does not cater for the faster speeds of the newer M.2 format cards.

Erm... Pass. I am on Linux. Support for M.2 and all variants are built into the Kernel. I have never in my memory had to download a driver for Linux...

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[Camping Gaza]

MS are moving inexorably towards a subscription service for their main products.

Adobe is all subscription based: Called Creative Cloud. You download it as a trial and sign up for a few quid a month to unlock, or sign up and download whatever you need etc.

Internet is full of software tools that enable you to get round this and run for free and get regular updates.

There is always someone ahead of the game!

(I do not support any of this illegal activity I may add, no really.)

 

[Viennese]

That's all amazing - and I can honestly say that I didn't understand 99% of it. My desk top is still on XP, and is happily still working well. I just bought a new W10 laptop for travelling, and hate having to learn W10! Glad I didn't go through W7 & W8 on the way here. There's only so much I can cope with to update myself...

 

[Lorryman100]

Erm... Pass. I am on Linux. Support for M.2 and all variants are built into the Kernel. I have never in my memory had to download a driver for Linux...

https://delightlylinux.wordpress.com/2016/04/20/the-samsung-950-pro-256g-and-linux-does-it-work/

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[Gellyneck]

Adobe is all subscription based: Called Creative Cloud. You download it as a trial and sign up for a few quid a month to unlock, or sign up and download whatever you need etc.

Internet is full of software tools that enable you to get round this and run for free and get regular updates.

There is always someone ahead of the game!

(I do not support any of this illegal activity I may add, no really.)

Got an old version of Creative Suite but don't use it now. In fact, don't use any Adobe software including Reader, Flash, etc...............
None of the software I mentioned previously is "illegal" or "subscription".
There are very serviceable freeware alternatives to the vast majority of commercial products.

 

[Lorryman100]

What I have found out is that windows takes exactly the same time to load whether using the M.2 SSD or the Sata 3 6GB/s Samsung Evo 850, 2.1 seconds. So I cloned back onto the 850 from the 960 as my boot disk and now use the faster speeds offered by the M.2 NVMe format for games and applications. Also the 2 hybrid 6TB drives I have fitted for data storage are set up in Raid 1 and are as fast as the samsung evo 850. Raid 1 is a system of running two hard discs that mirror each other so that you have 2 hard copies of all your data should one HD fail.

 

[Camping Gaza]

Not as good or professional as Adobe though. As an example Gimp. the "alternative" to Photoshop. You'll never use that if you are an industrial professional. You'll never get any work done.

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