Windows 10 Compatibility for HP DV6/Dual boot with win 7?

[MDRI]

Thanks for reviewing my thread and response.

My HP Pavillion dv6-2066dx AMD processor came with OEM installed Win 7 

As Microsoft stopped Win 7 updates, I am thinking of getting to win 10 preferably Dual boot with win 7 to try/test.

Here is the info from my laptop

Model/Hardware info. 
OS Name Microsoft Windows 7 Home PremiumVersion 6.1.7601 Service Pack 1 Build 7601OS Manufacturer Microsoft Corporation
System Manufacturer Hewlett-PackardSystem Model HP Pavilion dv6 Notebook 
PCSystem Type x64-based PCProcessor AMD Turion(tm) II Dual-Core Mobile M500, 2200 Mhz, 2 Core(s), 2 Logical Processor(s)BIOS Version/Date Hewlett-Packard F.08, 10/15/2009
Physical Memory (RAM) 6.00 GBTotal Physical Memory 5.75 GBAvailable Physical Memory 2.15 GBTotal Virtual Memory 11.5 GBAvailable Virtual Memory 6.49 GBPage File Space 5.75 GB

.The Sticker at the back shows

Pavilion DV6
Product : VW881UA#ABA
Model: DV6-2066 dx

How to I check whether my HP DV6 model has Windows 10 drivers available for it or not?

Am I able to do Dual Boot Windows 10 with Windows 7 on the above laptop?

What are the options , I have ?

Thanks for your guidance.

[WAWood]

@MDRI 

To answer your questions, HP does NOT provide any Win10 drivers for the old DV6 laptops.  I know because I have one myself.

But that said, it has been working FINE on Win10 since the original upgrade, even running v1900 that came out this last Fall.

However, there are problems doing the Upgrade ... so I wrote a LONG post with tips that you should read before attempting YOUR upgrade.  You may not need the genuineticket file, but if you do and you do NOT create it prior to the Upgrade, you will NOT later be able to activate Win10.

---------------------------------------------------

I "upgraded" my Pavilion DV6 laptop (different model) to Win10 -- but it was a lot of work, and I learned some lessons that would have made it much easier, had I know the problems in advance. So, I put together this description to help others with similar PCs:

You need to think about how much work you want to commit to just to run Win10. Seriously. Older Win7 machine tend to come in two flavors when it comes to the Win10 upgrade -- really easy, and really hard.

The really hard to upgrade PCs fall into two categories: (1) those that are upgradeable to Win10 and will work OK, (2) those that are not.

HP laptops, especially the older Win7 machines, often came with two different graphics chips -- and Intel and then, either an AMD or Nvidia. This was known as Switchable Graphics or Hybrid Graphics. You ran using the Intel chip most of the time, but when you needed extra graphics power, like in Gaming, the PC automatically switched over to using the AMD or Nvidia graphics chip.

Problem is, this requires special graphics drivers to work, and while those came preinstalled on the Win7 laptops, those drivers simply do not exist for Win10. Those drivers are not available from Intel, AMD, or Nvidia. A way to tell if your PC has two different graphics chips is to look in Device Manager under Display Adapters.

IMPORTANT Warning: If there are two different display adapters listed, one Intel and one AMD/Nividia, then you have this problem -- and if you force an upgrade to Win10, you will have serious graphics problems and your machine will not work.

However, if you do not have this problem, to CAN upgrade to Win10, but you must be prepared to do four things:

1) Make a complete image backup to external drive or large capacity USB stick,
2) Make changes to the reserved system partitioning scheme on your hard drive,
3) Use a different approach than Windows Update to do the Upgrade,
4) Be prepared to do a clean-install, if the Upgrade does not work.

---------------------------------
1: Image Backup:
This is VITAL because the machine is likely to fail the upgrade, and when it does, you will learn that the Win10 GoBack function is NOT reliable, and that can leave you with a corrupted machine that will require factory reset, and losing everything on it, to get it working again.

You avoid this by making an image backup to an external drive or USB stick using Macrium Reflect (MR) which provides a FREE version that can be used to image and restore partitions or entire drives.

What I recommend is the following:
1) Download and install Macrium Reflect (MR)
2) Run MR and choose the option: "Create an image of the partition(s) required to backup and restore Windows" to write a full backup to an external drive or USB stick
3) Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD

NOW, you have the means to restore a full working system from the external drive or USB stick in only a few minutes.
---------------------------------
2: System Reserved Resizing:
There is a small partition on the hard drive of Win7 preinstalled machines known as System Reserved. This holds something known as the boot loader code. It is 100MB in size -- all that is needed for Win7. But Win10 needs 350MB, and, in some cases, is NOT able to resize this on its own. IF that happens, you have to manually use a partitioning tool to resize it yourself.
---------------------------------
3: Use a different Upgrade approach:
Windows Update is the easiest, but least reliable, way to do the Win10 Upgrade. A much better, and more reliable way, is to use the Microsoft Media Creation Tool: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

In my case, I created Win10 install media on USB, inserted that, and tried to do the Upgrade while still in Win7. That failed -- miserably!!

So, I ended up having to Restore my PC to Win7 (using the MR backup I had made prior to the Upgrade), and follow the details in step 4 -- and that worked!
---------------------------------
4: Prepare for clean-install:
If you do all this, and after the upgrade, your PC is only partially functioning, that means that the Upgrade did not go well and stuff is still there from the prior OS corrupting the functionality of Win10.

You MIGHT be able to fix this by doing a clean-install of Win10. Problem is that a clean-install often does not recognize the prior activation, even though it should.

So, BEFORE you do the upgrade, follow these instructions from the community Win10 forums about creating a genuineticket.xml file: http://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/23354-clean-install-windows-10-directly-without-having-upgrade-fi...

You will need this later to activate your Win10 pc after the clean-install.

NOTE: I did the clean-install, and even though the product-key was SUPPOSED to work to activate Win10, it did not. And, calls to MS about this were wastes of time -- since the MS idiots said I could not activate Win10 with a Win7 product key!!

What DID work was using the genuineticket approach documented in the tenforums thread. I copied that from the USB stick where I saved it, rebooted, and after that, my DV6 was activated.

----------------------------------

As to dual-booting with both Win7 and Win10, while it CAN be done, the licensing aspect of that is unclear.  MS reuses the Win7 license to authorize the Win10 installation. So basically, you're using the same license twice -- once for each OS.  But while MS does not allow the same license to be used on different PCs, it's less clear about using the same license for two OS installations on the SAME PC.

[MDRI]

@WAWood,

Thanks for weighing in and appreciate your volunteerism .

Here is what I see in Device Manager under Display Adapters

      AMD M880G with ATI Mobility Radeon HD4200

Will Win10 work with above AMD Grapics Card?

How/Where can I get win10 on what form ?

Do you have a piece on Dual boot making with win 7 & win 10 ?

Thanks for sharing.

[WAWood]

@MDRI 

Use this link to download and create Win10 install media: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

BEFORE you do an install of Win10, you have to shrink the largest partition on your drive to make room for it.  You can download software to do that for free from MiniTool Partition Wizard online site.

Once you have done that, insert that into your PC (do NOT boot from it), find the folder containing the media, select the setup.exe file, right-click that and select Run as Administrator.  This will start an in-place Upgrade which could then take a couple of hours to complete.

[MDRI]

Thanks again. Upon reviewing your thread, 

I want to make sure, I am doing correctly.

Here are some questions:

1: Image Backup:

a) Is this Image back is for existing win7 (System + C Drive)?

b) As we make this backup on external drive, you are asking to make as boot-able drive?

c) What will happen , if I use a portion of existing external drive for this exercise?

d) Will my computer recognize this drive as boot drive automatically?

e) If win 10 cause, issue, how do I use this image to go back to win 7?

f) After win 10 successful install, how do I use this image to bring back installed software/tools (with win 7) to new win 10 ?

Thanks for your guidance.

[MDRI]

Thanks for weighing in.

I followed your steps

1. Image backup

2. Created win 7 rescue media

3. Started win10 update

     It download

     verify

     preparing

then screen went to window desktop.

No messages to see

What is happening here?

Thanks for sharing

[MDRI]

Thanks for your guidance. As you said, I am surprised when I tried win10 upgrade 2nd time. It took 5+ hours complete the upgrade on HP DV6-DX.

I did see ms security essential is not there in win 10. Does win 10 has built in "ms security essential"?

Thanks again