Windows 10 upgrade/Windows 8 recovery partition issues

[Droidriven]

I've tried upgrading to Windows 10 twice with this notebook.

1st attempt:

It tried downloading to D:Recovery partition, failed upgrade, luckily I made a Windows 8 recovery USB including the entire recovery drive before I ran the upgrade, after several steps and issues I restored to 8.

2nd attempt:

Again, it tried to download and install in 😧 partition and failed, second recovery was quite a bit more difficult than the first.


My question is, would removing the recovery partition completely before running the upgrade solve this and if so, would the Windows 8 recovery USB still be enough to recover if it fails even after completely removing recovery partition?

If upgrade is successful, would I be able to make a Windows 10 recovery USB then recreate a recovery partition then transfer the recovery USB to that partition?

I'm doing this for someone else that isn't technically proficient, if it were mine I'd be doing this differently(that is if I would actually ever own this little thing).

My goal here is to get them upgraded then make as close to 100% certain as I can that they can not only recover but that they won't have to worry about keeping track of a DVD or USB recovery media if all else fails and can recover while keeping the valid product key without them ever needing to buy, find, use or type a product key.

[CherylG · Accepted solution]

I would remove the Recovery partition and try the upgrade. As to the question of it working after removing the partition that may depend on which type of Recovery USB you created. There is Windows 8's version-which I've never used & am not sure whether it works without the partition. Then there is> HP Recovery Media- which works with/with out the partition and even on a new hdd.

Windows 10 does also have an option to create a usb recovery drive but I don't think it will transfer to a recovery partition- at least not a bootable one. Windows 10 has the Reset this PC option that uses files stored on hdd.

You must also consider that if the hdd failed it would take the recovery/reset partition with it so having a stand alone installer- either usb or dvd is always a good choice- to install on a replacement hdd.

Of course many of use use Imaging to take a full snapshot of the Windows install to easily restore either to original or new hdd. Imaging is also covered in the link above.

[Droidriven]

That's pretty much what I was thinking, ah well, I guess it might be one I'll be working again sometime so I'll put the recovery media on an sdcard and hope that they understand what I mean when I say "don't ever under any circumstances take this sdcard out, forget it is even there", lol.

[Droidriven]

Yes, I also use imaging software, as I said, if this were mine then my course would be different. They on the other hand, are not capable of solving issues later, I was trying to think of how I could make it as hassle free for them as I could. The likelihood of the hard drive failing is less than the assured fact that they'll lose or inadvertently destroy any recovery media I provide them.

[CherylG]

Creating a Recovery drive & leaving it in the slot may be the best option for them. In the event they needed to boot from it to reinstall Windows w/key intact- they would simply tap Esc immediately after power on then tap F9 for Boot options to choose the recovery drive.

Sounds simple enough for us- hopefully it will work for them also.

[Droidriven]

Well, I'll have two routes to go for them. I deleted recovery and am running installer, if successful I will be doing 2 things.

1) Create Windows 10 recovery media for safekeeping.

2) I will use Disk Management to shrink and create a new windows recovery partition then extract the Windows 10 media that I created using the Windows 10 media creation tool to the new recovery partiton(could probably use just the ISO downloaded directly instead of downloading via creation tool and creating the media, I have both on hand) and EasyBCD to make it bootable. I'm thinking that as long as this functions correctly, then as long as they have it operational online long enough for Digital Entitlement to take effect before they somehow screw it up then down the road  even if it comes to a full wipe and reinstall(for whatever unfortunate reason) then they should be covered under the Digital Entitlement Policy.

That should do what I was originally going for plus the USB recovery media as a last ditch backup.

Or I'll try AOMEI to create a bootable recovery partition of the Windows 10 install once its installed, updated, optimized and accessories installed.

If it goes according to plan, I'll write a guide to post here somewhere appropriate.

If removing recovery works out for getting 10 to install successfully, I'll be back to give you your Kudos and accepted solution. I know how it is to give good help with no acknowledgment.

[CherylG]

Good luck with the upgrade! You seem to have a solid plan in place-if there is such a thing where pc's are concerned. 🙂

I have heard good things about AOMEI. If you decide to try it please post back with results if time permits.

[Droidriven]

It upgraded fine once the recovery was removed and aftermarket antivirus was uninstalled. Though now that I think about it, before doing one of the upgrade attempts I had formatted but kept the recovery partition in an attempt to see if it would download and install correctly from there, it failed but I think that time it was because of AVG. I'm thinking that uninstalling AVG before running the upgrade would have downloaded to recovery and installed normally to C: drive, whether or not the recovery would have been functional to perform an actual recovery is open to question since the upgrade is executed from an .exe instead of booted from bootable media.