[fani]

I had upgraded Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 10 about 7-8 months back. Yesterday, Windows 10 threw a Device_Power_State_Failure and gave the BSOD. I rebooted the computer (desktop) and have been having issues since.

Opened the hardware and gave it a thorough cleaning. Windows 10 is no longer available. The OS options at startup show me Windows XP (installed on separate hard disk) and Windows 7 as the two options. Windows claims that it is not a genuine copy. No programs are working, including control panel, help & support etc. No idea where to enter the Windows 7 code and start to recover the Windows 10.

Any help is appreciated. Thanks in advance

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Hello fani,

 

The OS options at startup show me Windows XP (installed on separate hard disk) and Windows 7 as the two options. 

 

 

Are you able to boot into XP.

 

Windows claims that it is not a genuine copy.

 

Is this the same version of Windows 7 Ultimate that was upgraded to Windows 10.

 

Is the computer a custom build or an OEM such as Dell or HP etc.

 

Do you have the original Windows 7 Ultimate DVD.

 

 

No programs are working, including control panel, help & support etc. No idea where to enter the Windows 7 code

 

If the following steps courtesy of MS do not work, you may need to contact them or activate Windows over the telephone using the automated service, this will depend on your Windows product key type;

 

If you wish to change your product key in Windows 7, click the Start button > Right-click Computer, and then select  Properties.

 

Scroll down to the bottom of the window. Under Windows activation, click on Change product key.

 

Follow the instructions to change your product key and activate your copy of Windows 7

 

 

[phillpower2]

Hello fani,

 

The OS options at startup show me Windows XP (installed on separate hard disk) and Windows 7 as the two options. 

 

 

Are you able to boot into XP.

 

Windows claims that it is not a genuine copy.

 

Is this the same version of Windows 7 Ultimate that was upgraded to Windows 10.

 

Is the computer a custom build or an OEM such as Dell or HP etc.

 

Do you have the original Windows 7 Ultimate DVD.

 

 

No programs are working, including control panel, help & support etc. No idea where to enter the Windows 7 code

 

If the following steps courtesy of MS do not work, you may need to contact them or activate Windows over the telephone using the automated service, this will depend on your Windows product key type;

 

If you wish to change your product key in Windows 7, click the Start button > Right-click Computer, and then select  Properties.

 

Scroll down to the bottom of the window. Under Windows activation, click on Change product key.

 

Follow the instructions to change your product key and activate your copy of Windows 7

 

 

[fani]

Hi Phil,

 

I can boot into XP but do not have network connectvity (no XP drivers for the USB dongle).

 

My machine is a bit old, two core with 8GB RAM, custom built.

 

Yes, I had upgraded this Windows 7 to Windows 10 and I do have the original DVD with the key.

 

When I boot into Windows 7, I get a blue screen and I have to manually run the explorer.exe thru taskmanager to get the icons and the START button. I click on anything and it says "No Such Interface supported". No network connectivity. Even if I contact MS to activate the Windows, nothing works to input the new Key.

[phillpower2]

Hi fani,

 

Thanks for the additional information 

 

Was Windows 10 on its own partition or alongside your personal data.

 

We cannot be sure what has gone on here so need to try and take a look at the contents of each storage device on your computer to see if Windows 10 is showing up, you can use XP for this, no Internet connection is required, what I would ask you to do is make a note of any storage devices that are detected and any OSs that are shown to be installed on each drive, see Windows 8.1 and 10 example attachment below (please make sure that you disconnect any USB storage devices first)

 

To open Computer Management, click Start, and then click Control Panel. Click Performance and Maintenance, click Administrative Tools, and then double-click Computer Management. 

 

1. Open Computer Management (Local) 

2. In the console tree, click Disk Management.

 

 

[fani]

Windows XP is not reading my USB drives.

I will try to give the details here -

Partition System Capacity Used Unused Status Type

Disk 1
C:XP NTFS 149 135 13 System Primary

Disk2 - Data drive with no OS installed

Disk 3 (Windows 10 was installed here)
D:Windows7 NTFS 488.6 286.7 201.9 Active Primary
* NTFS 450 327.54 122.5 None Primary (I had Ubuntu installed here, not using now)
" Unallocated 442 GB unused None Logical

Disk 4 (Backup drive, No OS here)
* unallo 7.8 MB 0 7.84 MB None Logical
F: NTFS 488 225 263 None Logical
E: NTFS 443 351 91 None Logical

[phillpower2]

Disk 3 (Windows 10 was installed here)

D:Windows7 NTFS 488.6 286.7 201.9 Active Primary

* NTFS 450 327.54 122.5 None Primary (I had Ubuntu installed here, not using now)

" Unallocated 442 GB unused None Logical

 

 

Couple of questions if I may;

 

Is disk 3 a USB storage device.

 

On which disk was Windows 7 previously installed.

[fani]

Disk 3 is a hard disk, partitioned into 3. One had Windows 7/10 on it, second part had Ubuntu on it (not a priority now) and third was for file storage.

[phillpower2]

I had upgraded Windows 7 Ultimate to Windows 10 about 7-8 months back.

 

 

The above has me rather puzzled as Windows 10 should have overwritten the Windows old folder and Windows 7 with it after a month of being installed.

 

I suspect that you are looking at the very least a repair installation of Windows 7 and a fresh upgrade to Windows 10 or worse case scenario a fresh install of Windows 7 first.

 

See Microsoft guide below;

 

To use this method, you need to restart (boot) your computer using the disc or USB flash drive.

1. Insert the Windows 7 installation disc or USB flash drive, or a system repair disc, and then shut down your computer.

2. Restart your computer using the computer's power button.

3. When prompted, press any key, and then follow the instructions that appear.

4. On the Install Windows page, or on the System Recovery Options page, choose your language and other preferences, and then click Next.

   • If neither the Install Windows page nor the System Recovery Options page appear, and you're not asked to press any key, you might need to change some system settings. To learn how to do this, see Start your computer from a Windows 7 installation disc or USB flash drive.

5. If you are using the Windows installation disc or USB flash drive, click Repair your computer.

6. Select the Windows installation you want to repair, and then click Next.

7. On the System Recovery Options menu, click a tool to open it.

[fani]

Disk3 Partition 1 had Windows 7 on it. Installed Windows 10 on the same partition. I have two folders on that partition - windows and windows.old. So yes you are right that the same partition was overwritten on Windows 10 upgrade.

 

Cant I do a Windows 10 repair on Disk3 Partition1? This would be least disruptive. I recover my files and dont have to install the plethora of software starting from the anti-virus.

 

A fresh install would mean loss of my files and atleast one full day putting stuff on it :-(

[phillpower2]

Best Answer

Not sure that a repair of Windows 10 will be possible given that the computer is attempting to boot from Windows 7, still stranger things have happened, you will need to download yourself a Windows 10 ISO, see here and How to Run Startup Repair in Windows 10 again provided by Brink here

 

A fresh install would mean loss of my files and atleast one full day putting stuff on it :-(

 

 

Not sure why as Windows would be installed to only one of the three partitions, please note that Windows 10 should be installed on a partition of at least 120GB and no less.

[fani]

Posting from my PC :-)

 

The startup repair worked the first time itself. Rebooted the PC after removing the USB and Windows 10 is back. Firefox showed me the last pages were open when the problems started.

 

 

 

I think the names of my drives might have caused a bit of confusion. Disk3 Partition 1 is named Windows7, had Windows 7, was upgraded to Windows 10 but the name never changed. That Partition is about 488 GB in size with roughly 40% of it unused.

[phillpower2]

Happy days 

 

Hope that you are now going to rename the Windows 7 partition to Windows 10 

[fani]

He He !! Done.

 

Thanks for all the help and patience through the confusion between Windows 7 and Windows 10

[phillpower2]

You are most welcome and thanks for the follow up fani   

[fani]

Its nice to get help but nicer to say THANKS.

 

So long and thanks for all the fish.