Window 10 Activation After Format

[pugizimo]

Hi guys.

 

I need to format my PC sometime soon. It's a custom built machine and I purchased a Windows 7 disk and key when I originally bought it so I could put the OS on the SSD. Now I want to format it, but have since upgraded to Windows 10, and I wish to keep Windows 10. I know the free upgrade to Windows 10 runs out around June time and because of exams I wont be formatting until after then, so my worry is if I format, I wont be able to get Windows 10 again.

 

I understand I could get the W10 ISO file and do it that way, but if I use the W7 key I bought originally I'm assuming it wont work with W10.

 

What I'm thinking is if my OS key got changed with the update, could I somehow get that key back and write it down to use with the new installation. I've done this before with W7 when I've formatted in the past and then just had to go through Microsoft's automatic activation phone line to get the new OS authenticated. Except when I do it this time round, the key I write down is associated with W10 and then I just follow the phone thing as usual.

 

Any other help?

 

Cheers,

Nathan

 

 

[paddy-stone]

I'm having a bit of brain freeze at the moment... but found this for you  https://www.pcsteps.com/630-create-a-windows-installation-disc-or-usb/

[paddy-stone]

I can't remember the thing at the moment but it's something like media creation

[pugizimo]

7 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

I can't remember the thing at the moment but it's something like media creation

I've had a quick Google. So using the tools you can create a boot disk with the ISO which is great. But when it comes to the part of the installation when you have to enter the Windows key, what will happen then? Will it accept by W7 code?

[paddy-stone]

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

 

Got to download tool, that will take you through the steps to make an ISO file that you can burn to disc or make a bootable drive with

[paddy-stone]

1 hour ago, pugizimo said:

I've had a quick Google. So using the tools you can create a boot disk with the ISO which is great. But when it comes to the part of the installation when you have to enter the Windows key, what will happen then? Will it accept by W7 code?

Yes it will.

[pugizimo]

2 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

Yes it will.

Oh that's brilliant, thanks for your help mate

[C2dan88]

if you have already upgraded to Windows 10 and it is activated then you do not need to enter a key when reinstalling Windows 10, you can skip that step and your copy of WIndows 10 should activate under Digital Entitlement license provided your hardware has not changed

[paddy-stone]

2 hours ago, C2dan88 said:

if you have already upgraded to Windows 10 and it is activated then you do not need to enter a key when reinstalling Windows 10, you can skip that step and your copy of WIndows 10 should activate under Digital Entitlement license provided your hardware has not changed

 

My bad, for some reason I thought the OP wanted to install on a new machine... in that case OP you don't even need to re-install, you can just "refresh" windows 10, it basically checks itself and takes out everything that's not part of the windows 10 package, so just like re-installing basically. Go to settings>update and security>recovery> and choose reset this PC... then you can choose which option you want I believe. Make sure you have backed up anything you want to keep as that will literally wipe your stuff apart from windows, then you need to re-install drivers etc as if a new install.

[pugizimo]

19 hours ago, paddy-stone said:

 

My bad, for some reason I thought the OP wanted to install on a new machine... in that case OP you don't even need to re-install, you can just "refresh" windows 10, it basically checks itself and takes out everything that's not part of the windows 10 package, so just like re-installing basically. Go to settings>update and security>recovery> and choose reset this PC... then you can choose which option you want I believe. Make sure you have backed up anything you want to keep as that will literally wipe your stuff apart from windows, then you need to re-install drivers etc as if a new install.

Oh that sounds even better. I've got a 120gb SSD and would like to add another 120gb SSD and run them together, not in RAID just add the two drives together, I think it's JBOD i'm after. Do you think that this will effect the refresh?

[paddy-stone]

1 hour ago, pugizimo said:

Oh that sounds even better. I've got a 120gb SSD and would like to add another 120gb SSD and run them together, not in RAID just add the two drives together, I think it's JBOD i'm after. Do you think that this will effect the refresh?

I'm not too sure about that TBH, I am more of a purist and rather keep my drives separate in case of failures... but I don't believe you can have 2 drives consolidate to be 1 C: drive unless you have raid set up.. but I could be wrong. Is there any particular reason you're wanting to consolidate the storage? I personally keep my boot SSD and my storage SSD separate, that way I also make better use of backing up data, for instance, I backup my SSD with the OS on it regularly to an image.. that way in the even of failure or I want to re-install to a new Drive I just start my backup USB and select that drive image... and boom, I am back to where I saved the image from, all settings, programs etc in tact. I wouldn't want to keep backing up media files etc that are kept on the stotrage drive when the OS drive is backed up you see... hope that makes sense?  I actually backup the disc images and my media to a NAS server anyway... so I am not duplicating data backups, apart from when I mean to.

I think you will have to do a RAID 0 set up if you really want the 2 drives to consolidate the data between them.... but it's not worth it IMO.

 

 

[pugizimo]

5 minutes ago, paddy-stone said:

I'm not too sure about that TBH, I am more of a purist and rather keep my drives separate in case of failures... but I don't believe you can have 2 drives consolidate to be 1 C: drive unless you have raid set up.. but I could be wrong. Is there any particular reason you're wanting to consolidate the storage? I personally keep my boot SSD and my storage SSD separate, that way I also make better use of backing up data, for instance, I backup my SSD with the OS on it regularly to an image.. that way in the even of failure or I want to re-install to a new Drive I just start my backup USB and select that drive image... and boom, I am back to where I saved the image from, all settings, programs etc in tact. I wouldn't want to keep backing up media files etc that are kept on the stotrage drive when the OS drive is backed up you see... hope that makes sense?  I actually backup the disc images and my media to a NAS server anyway... so I am not duplicating data backups, apart from when I mean to.

I think you will have to do a RAID 0 set up if you really want the 2 drives to consolidate the data between them.... but it's not worth it IMO.

 

 

Well that's the issue I don't want the risks associated with raid no matter how little they may be. The way my PC is now i have a small SSD for the OS then a couple harddisks for storage. Although I try my best to re-route folders and changed installation directories I somehow still get loads of stuff on my SSD that I don't particularly want on there due to it filling up. So I've come to the decision to embrace the fact I can't always control what windows does with my boot drive and have a bigger one, and then I can use it for some regularly used programs which is always a bonus. But because i already have an SSD I'd rather buy another smaller on and combine them rather than buy one new larger one because of the cost. I can pick up another 840 evo now for around £50 which ain't bad at all. I know within windows disk management you can virtually combine the drives to make one larger one, but I think that literally just fills up on drive then fills the other rather than splitting each file half and half like a RAID 0 config would. I'll have to do some research into what configs of drives to use I guess, it's quite annoying really using multiple drives. I cant wait until 1tb SSDs become become more commercial in price, I know they've come down a lot lately but I cant bring myself to spend a couple hundred on a drive 

[paddy-stone]

Yeah, I hear ya... I don't have a problem like you describe, but that's probably my OCD, lol... In any program I use I make sure it's default is saving where I want it to. Also, in windows 10 you have this

 

 

 

Which can make it easier for people to keep track of their files a bit.

[pugizimo]

1 hour ago, paddy-stone said:

Yeah, I hear ya... I don't have a problem like you describe, but that's probably my OCD, lol... In any program I use I make sure it's default is saving where I want it to. Also, in windows 10 you have this

 

 

 

Which can make it easier for people to keep track of their files a bit.

 

If I only had that on Windows 7 lol, that makes it so much easier man! One thing with mine however is the "New Apps" is locked to C drive which is probably where my problem is of having stuff save to there for no reason. Not sure why however

 

[paddy-stone]

Hmm, that's weird... I get to choose C or H for mine.