Upgrade DV7-1228CA to WIN 10

[Tommy007]

Hi,

I have a HP DV7-1228CA notebook and would like to upgrade to WIN 10 operating system. I plan to upgrade to WIN 7 (64-bit) version and then perform a free upgrade to WIN 10 (64-bit) version. I  was able to find software and driver download for WIN 7 but not for WIN 10 at HP site. I particularly concern about HP software version for WIN 10 (e.g. HP Recovery Manager and etc..). I am not sure HP will release the necessary WIN 10 version of software tools for this machine. Does anyone have this experience on upgrading DV7 to WIN 10 from WIN 7 or Vista?

[WAWood]

Tommy007

Hello;

Allow me to welcome you to the HP forums!

I read your post about wanting to upgrade to Win10 and wanted to help.

You are correct in that the lack of HP Win10 drivers could be a serious problem.  HP's not producing new Win10 drivers for the older machines, and MS only installs drivers with the most basic functionality.  So, if you end up with a PC in which things don't work you're basically stuck, as there are not going to be HP drivers coming out to fix those problems.

I've upgraded several Win7 PCs to Win10 -- and they all had problems of one kind or another ... so I wrote this to provide advice to folks considering such an upgrade ...

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.  If there are two different 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, and maybe more than one, than Windows Update to do the Upgrade,
4) Prepare for a clean-install.

---------------------------------
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:  http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-10/media-creation-tool-install?ocid=ms_wol_win10   Choose the Upgrade this PC now option.

After all that, you need to know that MS installs drivers with only the most basic functionality.  Since HP does not have Win10 drivers for your PC, this limited functionality is the best you're going to get.  HP is not actively writing new Win10 drivers for the old Win7 PCs.  To retain full functionality of your PC, your best move is NOT to upgrade to Win10.
---------------------------------
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.

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Good Luck
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[Tommy007]

Hi WAWood,

Thanks for valuable advice.  I understand I might have more questions while doing the whole upgrade exercise. For now I have a couple questions: 

1) On section 1.3 - Use the option to create a boot USB stick or CD: Can it be done with Macrium Reflec or some other means? Do I still need to create the HP BIOS USB stick or they are the same thing?

2) On section 2 - System Reserved Resizing: Is that small partition be created and set up by the WIN 7 upgrade tool while doing a clean upgrade? Then I will need to resize this partition before the clean upgrade of WIN 10 from 7 and the WIN 10 upgrade tool will set up this enlarged partition.  Am I understanding right?

Many thanks.

Tommy

[WAWood · Accepted solution]

Answers to your questions:

1) The Boot CD/USB is used to boot into Macrium Reflect so you can run the restore operation.  You can't run that from the hard drive because it is being used when MR is running from there.

2) I found I had to resize the System Reserved partition because, at 100MB, it was too small for Win10, causing the Win10 Upgrade to fail every time I ran it.  That partition is set up on preinstalled Win7 PCs, the Upgrade tool does not set it up, and in many cases, although it SHOULD enlarge it, as in my case, it does not and fails, instead.

IF you have no system reserved partition, then do no create one as the Upgrade tool should then work OK without it.

Good Luck
========================================================================
I am a volunteer and I do not work for, nor do I represent, HP.
---------------------------------------------------------------
If my posts helped you, please click the Thumbs-Up symbol to say thanks.
If my posts solved your problem please click "Accept As Solution".
========================================================================