Going back to Win8.1 from Win10...

[Marc Isikoff]

I had a decent Win8.1 on my HTPC using an SSD.

When I "upgraded" to Win10 I did a clean install on an M.2 drive and have now reached the conclusion that Win10 is a net negative from Win8.1

I have my Win8.1 DVD and product key and still have that SSD with Win8.1 installed.

When I set my BIOS to boot from my Win8.1 it gets to start the windows starting up screen but the colored "balls" stop and it resets the BIOS complaining that Win8.1 failed to load.

If I boot from my Win8.1 DVD is there an option to repair the Win8.1 drive so it's bootable again?

 

[Cazauxx]

Search up settings (PC Settings) , navigate to recovery and choose go back to windows 8.1.

If you have been on windows 10 for more than a month you cannot go back. Unless you do a fresh install via disc

 

[Marc Isikoff]

Search up settings (PC Settings) , navigate to recovery and choose go back to windows 8.1.

If you have been on windows 10 for more than a month you cannot go back. Unless you do a fresh install via disc

I believe that's the case if I did an inplace upgrade from 8.1 --> 10, but I did a fresh install to a different drive (the M.2) for Win 10.

The Win 8.1 Pro is still on the SSD drive in the PC and accessible as a data drive from Win 10, but I cannot boot to it. So I was going to try using the DVD and see if there's anyway to restore the boot sector on that drive so I can actually get into Win8.1 again.