System Restore to Win 7 then Upgrade to Win 10

[rschumacher]

I just purchased a new HP Pavilion desktop and my older desktop HP Pavilion P6503f that came originally with Windows 7 64-bit and now has Win 10 Pro 64-bit, is destined to be given away but I want to perform the system recovery first and bring it back to when it was new. I have a Windows 10 key so I was wondering when after I do the recovery should I do the upgrade to Windows 10? Also too I will probably update Windows as well as any necessary internal drivers from HP website using Support Assistant. I will not be adding any software to the computer after it is restored. The person that gets it can do that. The only thing I will be doing is the Win 10 upgrade. So essentially it will be a brand new computer with Win 10 Pro instead of Windows 7. I have upgraded the RAM and ADDED another DVD/RW drive. Other than that the computer is in perfect condition and has been taken well cared of. Any advice is very much appreciated and welcomed. I thank you in advance. Happy 4th

[WAWood]

@rschumacher 

The problem you have with the upgraded PC is that it will now NOT rollback to Win7 because the Win10 Upgrade has a history of corrupting the HP recovery information.  In addition, HP no longer carries recovery media for Win7, so there is nothing you can get from HP to restore the PC back to Win7.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, @rschumacher 

As WAWood posted, HP no longer sells recovery media for your PC.

You can still buy a W7 recovery kit from this non-HP vendor at the link below.

http://www.computersurgeons.com/p-22686-windows-7-64-bit-recovery-kit-br347av-for-hp-pavilion-deskto...

Unless there is some compelling reason for you to restore the factory image on the PC, I realize that you plan on giving it away, so why not just clean install W10 on it?

You do not need a product key or anything to do that.

Make bootable W10 installation media by using the Media creation tool at the link below.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

When you get to the part of the installation that asks you to enter a product key, select the 'I don't have a product key' option, and W10 will install and automatically activate once you are connected to the internet.

When you get to the screen that asks 'Where do you want to install Windows,' delete every partition on the hard drive, leaving just one partition of unallocated space.

Click Next, and W10 will begin to install.

If you want to spend the money on the recovery media, and want to upgrade the PC back to W10, just click on the blue Update Now button on the media creation tool link I posted above.

You should not even be asked to enter a product key, but if you are, select the 'I don't have a product key' option.

[rschumacher]

Thanks Paul, fortunately I did create recovery media discs when I purchased the computer it is on 3 CD's. I like your idea of doing a clean install or Windows 10 from the get go as that would save some time. As stated I do have the media and I do have a Win 10 Pro key so please advise what would be easier to do. There is a partition already for the system recovery data but if it's useless I would rather just get rid if it is not necessary. Thanks again

[rschumacher]

Also too I have a Win ISO disk image file as well See Below

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome.

I guess it is entirely up to you.

You have three options...

1. If you never clean installed W10, you could use the factory reset option to reinstall W7.

See this link for how to do that.

https://support.hp.com/us-en/document/c01867418

2. Use the 3 disk set you created to reinstall W7 if the factory reset option doesn't work, or you had clean installed W10 at some point.

3. Clean install W10 (would be the easiest thing to do just because it skips the W7 install).

If you go with the W10 clean install, you may as well delete the recovery partition because it will be of no use to you afterward.

[rschumacher]

Can I do the clean install with the Disk Image File I have as I do have a key as well? Or do I need to do the Win 7 then upgrade The less steps the better. Thanks again

Russell

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Hi, Russell:

You can do the clean install with the disk image ISO file you have, but you will need to use a utility to transfer the ISO file to a DVD or USB flash drive so that it is bootable.

You can use the Microsoft tool that I zipped up and attached below to do that, or you can use a DVD burning program that has a burn ISO file option, or some other free utility such as Rufus.

[rschumacher]

Thanks I just used the Windows Disk Image Burner Utility. I am starting the project now. Hopefully it works out. 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Anytime.

Glad to have been of assistance.