Will A6-5200 upgrade to Win 10?

[RonEvo]

Tried to upgrade to Win 10, & part way through message that Win 10 installation failed, no error number.

BIOS is dated March 2013, & no further updates. HP say drivers OK for Win 10 after Aug 2013.
A website I found said chipset needs NX feature for Win10, but as far as I can see, the AMD A6-5200 doesn't have that? I don't understand what I said: don't know what I'm talking about!!
I tried to upgrade with all personal files & apps, so the later might be an issue. Only apps installed were provided by HP eg Cyberlink programs. Only Win Defender as net security ATM. Also haven't tried clean boot yet.

Any ideas please? Going to be difficult upgrade probably? 

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Since you have not previously installed W10 on the PC, I don't know if you can try clean installing W10, and then use the W8.1 product key in the BIOS to activate the installation.

Clean installing W10 would require you to reinstall all of your programs and files after W10 installed, and there is still no 100% guarantee it will work.

Now You can Activate Windows 10 Using Windows 7, 8 or 8.1 Product Key – AskVG

Assuming you want to take the chance on this, I recommend that you make a system image of your current W8.1 installation prior to installing W10, so you can easily reinstall your current configuration in case the clean install fails too. 

I use the free Macrium Reflect software to do that, under the Backup at Home section. 

Along with the system image, make sure you create the bootable DVD or USB rescue drive you boot from to access the system image stored on your portable hard drive.

Macrium Software | Reflect Free Edition

How to clean install W10...

How to do a Clean Install of Windows 10 the Easy Way (howtogeek.com)

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.

You can use the free showkey plus utility that I zipped up and attached below to see your W8.1 product key so that you can activate W10 after it has installed.

[RonEvo]

Thanks. I have created a HDD image & boot disk using Acronis True Image before trying to update to Win 10.

By clean install, I thought the advice was to disable all non MS services & startups, then try Win 10 upgrade using Win 8.1.

But is this a waste of my time if the A6-5200 chipset doesn't support Win 10? Thus my question in subject line.

Is the chipset imcompatible, or will work if feature of Win 10 disabled / not installed?

[Paul_Tikkanen]

You're very welcome. 

Folks have upgraded older AMD notebooks with older processors than yours to W10 with no problem.

I don't know of any reason why you shouldn't be able to run W10 on your notebook. 

[RonEvo]

Thanks Paul. I'll try again from DVD this time.

[Paul_Tikkanen · Accepted solution]

Anytime.

Good luck.

Hopefully a DVD or USB flash drive will work.

The latest ISO file is too large to fit on a standard DVD, so you would have to use a dual layer DVD or a USB flash drive.

[RonEvo]

Great Paul, I've upgraded!! Used DVD created by the MS Media Tool, & disabled all non-MS services & all startup in Win 8.1 before upgrading. Win 10 install fitted on DVD, so maybe some features omitted & downloaded from internet during setup? HP Support Assistant needed manual upgrade, & is now looking for HP updates. Win 10 working in spite of my processor not being listed on AMD website as compatible with Win 10 (as far as I can tell).

Do u have time to comment on following please:

1. Now have Windows.old folder of 19 GB. Safe to delete after a few months if Win 10 working well?

2. Early in upgrade, there was a message setup files different to my Win 8, so will need to download a Language Pack after install. I'm in Australia, & regional settings & time format etc all correct now. So ignore this message, or doesn't this have something to do with proofing?

3. Now enable the services I disabled for upgrade, 1 by 1 I presume. Is there a way to check online if their is an upgraded or Win 10 service for each of my disabled services?

4. I think I need to use Acronis True Image boot disk to create an image of Win 10 working disc. The laptop in question has been given to grandnephews, & I just deleted original owner's profile & files, securely wiped unused space on HDD, deleting / adding programs they don't need / need.
Is there another way to make an image that would be simpler to recover by users?

5. Expand C drive to wipe the recovery partition on the HDD? By Computer Management > Disk Management? EFI System should be left as is? Recovery partition only 1 GB.

6. Following programs no longer available, as don't work with Win 10 (updates available? or not needed).

HP Support Assistant still getting updates now.

a) HP 3D DriveGuard

b) Ralink Bluetooth Stack64

c) AMD Start Now

d) HP Documentation (not applicable now, or can be updated to Win 10?)

Thanks again for your advice.

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi:

Glad you were able to upgrade to W10.   I figured you should be able to.

The Windows.old folder will automatically disappear in 30 days, unless you want to delete it earlier using the disk cleanup utility>cleanup system files button.  You can't just delete it without using the disk cleanup utility.

I use the free Macrium Reflect software to create a system image and a bootable rescue disk.

The file on the left under the Backup at Home section.

Macrium Software | Reflect Free Edition

I never keep the recovery partition on any of my PC's, since there are so many ways to reinstall Windows.

So, you can delete it if you want.

I would think you can ignore the regional settings message since everything appears to be working correctly.

I can only help you with some of the driver questions.

 HP 3D DriveGuard:

I don't see that there are any drivers for that device on your notebook's support page.

Is there an unknown device needing a driver?  if so, that would be the 3D driveguard.

If there is an unknown device, please post the hardware ID for it, so I can figure out which version of the 3D driveguard driver you need.

Ralink Bluetooth:

This is the W10 driver for it...

https://ftp.hp.com/pub/softpaq/sp71501-72000/sp71572.exe 

Unfortunately, that model wifi card has a nasty habit of completely disappearing on the newer builds of W10 and there is no fix, other than to replace the wifi adapter.

If that happens, I can give you a couple of alternatives for an upgrade.

The HP documentation can't be updated. 

Unfortunately, I have no clue what the AMD start now program is.

That is original to the PC as it came from the factory.

[RonEvo]

Thanks Paul.

I'm having trouble making biggest recovery partition part of C drive partition. I've deleted partition, then used a few MB for D drive as that was that recovery drive letter, rest is now unallocated.

I thought Win 10 Disk Management could merge, but I can't see how. So I've resorted to 2 free partition programs, but the issue seems to be can only merge adjoining partitions & don't seem to have a way of moving partition, even though can copy partition.

Partition in order in Disk Management: 400 MB recovery but shows as none used; 260 MB EFI, C Drive with Windows, 606 MB recovery (none used), unallocated 23 GB.

Any ideas please? 

The only unknown in Device Manager is Bluetooth. The sp file you mentioned has run, but on installing it's frozen, but Status bar has green all the way across, as if installed 100%. But Next button greyed out, & no Finish button. What do you suggest please? And how would I test Bluetooth if Device Manager now shows installed? I have a Win 10 desktop computer, not sure if it has Bluetooth. And I have an iPhone if that helps.

Thanks in advance for any further ideas,

Ron

[Paul_Tikkanen]

Hi, Ron:

Please post the hardware ID for the unknown device so I can figure out what driver it needs.

Use this guide for how to find the hardware ID for a device...

How to Find Drivers for Unknown Devices in the Device Manager (howtogeek.com)

Unfortunately, I would not be able to help you with any of the drive partition issues you are facing.