PC froze while upgrading to windows 10, am I screwed?

Wailin

Ok so I have a Dell XPS which came with windows 8 and I was receiving prompts to upgrade to 10 for free and went ahead earlier today. It seemed fine and was upgrading until it got to 71% and then froze. It's been like this for the last few hours with nothing happening. I'd say about 6 hrs at this stage. What can I do? I'm sure if I turn off the pc I'm fecked and will lose all my data including tons of pictures and videos which are irreplaceable. Help and advice appreciated folks.

Moon54

If it's still frozen, I'd say just do a hard reset, hold down the power button for 5 seconds and the laptop will turn fully off.
Then try booting it on again. It should take off from where it left off, and continue installing.

I've had this happen a couple of times, and Windows 10 seems fairly good at recovering itself.

Wailin

Thanks I went ahead and rebooted and it restored to previous settings without issue. Was sweating there for awhile but all good. Think I'll stick to windows 8 for now until I do a proper back up!

michaelotoole

Before I upgraded to 10, I cloned my Windows 7 drive and made sure the clone worked before proceeding...

Most hard drive manufacturers will supply disk cloning software to allow you to move your OS to a bigger drive or clone your drive as a back up. Most often the cloning software is a licensed version Acronis True Image with limitations but cloning is not limited...

I've moved my Windows 7 on a few occasions either to a bigger drive or when I suspected my drive was beginning to fail and never had to reactivate windows after cloning...

In theory moving Windows 10 to a lager drive or an SSD may require a phone call to MS as the hardware has changed but I suspect upgrading the drive or RAM may be automatic that is, it should not require a phone call... Upgrading the motherboard or processor will almost definitely require a quick phone call giving reasons for the hardware change in order to reactivate Windows...

NorseRunes

michaelotoole wrote: »

In theory moving Windows 10 to a lager drive or an SSD may require a phone call to MS as the hardware has changed but I suspect upgrading the drive or RAM may be automatic that is, it should not require a phone call... Upgrading the motherboard or processor will almost definitely require a quick phone call giving reasons for the hardware change in order to reactivate Windows...

Correct me if Im wrong, iirc the win 10 key was tied to the motherboard ? As long as you activate it after upgrade. You should then be able to reinstall fresh through the available iso download onto a new drive same board shouldnt be an issue ? Cant find the info atm.

Moon54

NorseRunes wrote: »

Correct me if Im wrong, iirc the win 10 key was tied to the motherboard ? As long as you activate it after upgrade. You should then be able to reinstall fresh through the available iso download onto a new drive same board shouldnt be an issue ? Cant find the info atm.

You are correct. Once a device has been upgraded & activated to Windows 10, you won't need a product key again.
If you ever do a fresh install of Windows 10 afterwards you can just skip the Product Key entry screen when installing.

Changing a hard drive, RAM or GPU etc won't require telephone activation, but replacing a motherboard most probably would.

michaelotoole

I've just installed (complete new install) to an SSD and it went without a hitch, automatic activation...
My comments above were based on discussion over at microsoft where the license appears to be tied to the hardware (not just the motherboard) although realistically its' got to be the motherboard doesn't it...