Repaired Windows 10 with Windows 7 installation disc, have system image, now what?

jaymccowan13

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Jan 7, 2018
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Something corrupted in the boot folder of my computer and I was unable to get past my bios. I had upgraded from Win7 to Win10 with the free upgrade back when that was a thing, so I used the installation discs for Win7 since it was all i had and booted from those. Ran a system repair which told me to run the chkdsk utility, so I ran that through the command prompt. After that completed I let it reinstall Win7 and move all the old recovered files to the windows.old file. I also have a Win10 system backup on an external HD from a few weeks before the boot corrupted.

So now I am wondering where to go from here? I need to re-upgrade to windows 10 but I'm not sure where my license exists (and the free upgrade promotion has ended). I also can either restore stuff from the windows.old file or from the system image I have saved, but I'm assuming I need to get Win10 running first before I can do anything with either of those? Overall I'm just trying to get everything back the way it is.
 
Solution
The license was transferred FROM Windows 7 to Windows 10 automatically when you upgraded (called a "Digital Entitlement").

Your license is for Windows 10.

(not sure why W7 gave no indication though it's possible it is showing that it's not activated).

You can do the following:

1) Restore backup Image of W10, or

2) do a CLEAN INSTALL of W10 (if there's any reason otherwise use #1)
*do NOT reenter the key. The activation is all automatic. Microsoft will recognize your PC.
A clean install would involved:
a) insert 8GB or larger USB stick
b) download MS Media Creation Tool and run it
c) choose "other PC" option... wait for download and creation of the W10 media
d) boot to the USB stick and install

(if doing clean install I'd also...


You can still upgrade from windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 for free. Download the windows 10 media tool and upgrade from there. Don't install on USB. Just choose the upgrade PC option

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10
 
The license was transferred FROM Windows 7 to Windows 10 automatically when you upgraded (called a "Digital Entitlement").

Your license is for Windows 10.

(not sure why W7 gave no indication though it's possible it is showing that it's not activated).

You can do the following:

1) Restore backup Image of W10, or

2) do a CLEAN INSTALL of W10 (if there's any reason otherwise use #1)
*do NOT reenter the key. The activation is all automatic. Microsoft will recognize your PC.
A clean install would involved:
a) insert 8GB or larger USB stick
b) download MS Media Creation Tool and run it
c) choose "other PC" option... wait for download and creation of the W10 media
d) boot to the USB stick and install

(if doing clean install I'd also UNHOOK all other SSD/HDD's and DELETE all the partitions of the OS partition at the start of the install process... you should also have your LOGIN e-mail + password ready for the install process)
 
Solution