Upgrade Laptop From Windows 8 To 8.1 Using System Builder ISO?
Jan 5, 2014
can i upgrade my laptop from windows 8 to windows 8.1 using a system builder iso?
my VAIO shipped with pre-installed windows 8 on it and no serial stick, so i extracted the serial from BIOS, it is a Core edition of windows 8 x64,(don't know if i got single language or not!) and found someone that shared a genuine untouched iso of windows 8.1 non-PRO OEM x64 for system builders,
so if i use it to upgrade from 8 to 8.1 does it accept my serial after the installation assuming i enter the generic serial in the installation? and does it differ from my own edition of windows and do i lose anything or any info will change on the laptop using this upgrade method?
I was FORCED to install Windows 8 to my IMac 24 inch running Mountain Lion OS via Parallels 8 for the following reason. I receive an error message stating that some files cannot be moved and that I must create a single partition formatted Mac OS X Journal Extended. In short. the Windows 8 partition could not be created. The problem is, my drive is ALREADY a single partition in the aforementioned format. I succeeded in installing Windows 8 on my other IMac via Boot Camp with no problems. The only difference between the two IMacs is the former runs the Mountain Lion OS while the latter runs the Lion OS. I like Windows 8, however, there is significant performance degradation when running Windows 8 within Parallels.
Yesterday, I clean-installed Windows 8 Pro x86 on an old Dell Vostro 1400 laptop which had been running Windows 7 Ultimate, and it activated and ran fine, without even a single exclamation point in Device Manager. I applied the update necessary to make the Store offer 8.1 and proceeded to install it as I've done on a couple other machines. After downloading the thing, it errored out with:
Couldn't install Windows 8.1
Contact your PC manufacturer to see if you can upgrade the System BIOS
When I clicked the OK button, it then gave me the informative and grammar-challenged error box:
Something happened and the Windows 8.1 couldn't be installed. Please try again. Error code: 0xc1900104
Try again Cancel
Ever the optimist, I clicked Try again, and of course, it proceeded to download all over again from scratch, only to error out in the same way. I then downloaded all the Windows 8 updates, although just the one had been necessary on my other machines that successfully upgraded to 8.1, and tried again, only to get the same result.
Today, I've discovered the Windows 8.1 Compatibility Assistant, which avoids the lengthy download of the upgrade every time (Microsoft, maybe you should run it implicitly before downloading 3 GB of transient data), and it tells me:
This PC doesn't meet system requirements
Contact your PC manufacturer to see if you can upgrade the System BIOS
Obviously, no BIOS updates are available, and what exactly is the problem here with my BIOS. The obvious googling turned up nothing except some people with Sony Vaios that had the same problem, which was corrected with a BIOS update, and of course, there is no information on what their BIOS update does to make the 8.1 upgrade possible.
I've just upgraded from win8 to win 8.1 using the windows update (store), my questions are :
1. Can the ISO file that was automatically downloaded by the system during windows 8 upgrade to 8.1 be saved or backed up? the download was about 2.6 GB.
2. If so can the backed up file be used to do a "clean install" in future on the same machine?
I have a windows 8 laptop and today the sound just stopped working. The windows audio service will not enable and everytime i try to enable it fails due to a duplicate in Windows Audio Endpoint Builder.
Now tricky part is i cant open control panel as it doesn't load, i tried reinstalling windows 8 but it also not load. This all was working perfectly just earlier today. I have no sound, just an x by the sound.
After installing Windows 8 upgrade over Win7 on two desktops and one laptop, I ran sfc /scannow (in an administrator command box) as I usually do after new installations, and in all three cases sfc found corrupt system files and repaired them. So downloading the upgrade and installing might find running sfc useful!
Been running this system since 2010 win7 and upgraded to win 8.
When I switched over to win 8 I also bought an ssd drive (C) and it seemed to be working fine ever since.
I recently bought a couple 3TB drives and wanted to replace the old HDD (F), installed the drives, transferred all data off F and then shut down the pc. I took F out of the pc and it won't boot.
Going from loads of tutorials on here I found that F was listed as active and a system drive.
Any attempts at making it inactive and activating C resulted in nothing. I used my startup repair disc but there was no OS listed to repair??
Whenever C is active and F inactive, I've no options at all with startup repair.
I have a Toshiba laptop (Portege R835-P56X). I was running Windows 8 upgraded from Win 7. I successfully upgraded to Windows 8.1 but was having some problems with the Wifi. I followed the instructions to reset the TCP/IP Autotuning. When I restarted, Windows failed to start, and all repair & recovery options failed, so I cannot even access System Restore.
Windows attempts Automatic Repair then shows options to "Restart" or "Advanced Options" but I am unable to click either one--the keyboard and keypad are both completely non-responsive.
Unfortunately, I do not even have a Win 8 disk to use for a repair. I do have a disk image from just before I upgraded to Win 8.1. The problem is: how to access it?
I did a legitimate upgrade from Windows 7 and have a license for Win 8 with Media Center, but unfortunately cannot locate my original email, so Windows won't send me a Windows 8 DVD.
I'm tempted to simply restore to factory settings and Windows 7, which I'm running on my other PC without all these hellish problems. I hate Windows 8 anyway.
I have a sony vaio laptop which came with a pre-installed windows 8 OS. I recently upgraded it to windows 8.1. After the upgrade, I have observed that many softwares that are actually installed on the system are not listed in the apps list, such as Microsoft office, autocad, freemake, etc. It becomes really inconvenient to open any new file of these software.
I was upgrading from windows 8 to 8.1 from the windows store but when the computer was updating the pc, the computer when off. That was when i realised i forgot to on my power supply. When i tried to on it, it gave me the 0x0000225 error and 0x000000f error when i tried to use a repair usb (win 8)
Acer Aspire V5 laptop that was running an OEM Windows 8 to upgrade to 8.1.
After selecting the Upgrade to Windows 8.1 via the store, the system went through it's install procedure, however after it does an auto reboot, it gives you a blank screen with the message No Operating System found, in the upper left corner.
But, you can turn the machine off and back on, and it will boot just fine. However if you select restart it does the same thing "no operating system found", on restart and again you must power down and power back on.
I have searched for fixes, but all seem to point to some sort of re-install process. I am not to crazy about the idea of re-installing to factory settings or doing a repair back to Windows 8 and attempting to upgrade again, are their any known shorter fixes for this?
And if I do go back to Windows 8, and try to upgrade again, what is to say it won't happen again?
I'm using windows 8 pro which I upgraded from windows 7 home premium in january. After the upgrade, my e key stopped working. After another few months, more keys stopped working and now, no keys are working. What do I do?
Upgrading from Windows 8 ProWMC on a Dell Studio 1535 laptop. It ran for a couple of hours and was in the 'a few more things' stage when it decided to fail and roll everything back.
Now that it's back where I started, where do I start looking to try to find out what happened? I'm hoping it put some log files somewhere.
My first guess is that it's third-party drivers, will start by looking at those. There are several things which are old but still were working with Windows 8; I suppose one or more of these might not be compatible?
Been running the upgrade to 8.1 from a factory installed Win 8 system on my Dell 5720 laptop. Download took quite long and now installation is taking even longer. It went through multiple steps on the Dell logo splash screen starting with "Getting Ready". Then it went to "Setting Up". Another lengthy time period. Now its doing "Setting up a few more things" and has been hung at 28% for over an hour. Hard drive activity very low and sporadic.
I have a Toshiba (satellite) laptop and it has just been upgraded to Windows 8.1. I made recovery discs before the upgrade but would like to backup again after the upgrade so i don't have to revert to the factory set-up or refresh option as I have already had that experience and i don't want to go that route again! My laptop is only 9months old & running fine so far with no issues, i can back-up my documents etc to my flash drive but i would like to back up, 'or do you call it copying', the whole setup so if i have a problem i can re-install the whole lot as it stands from today. I have increased the system restore percentage bar to allow more restores points as another safety option.
I have a Dell Inspiron 15R SE 7520 laptop that came with Windows 8 Core edition pre-installed. This laptop has never worked properly for some reason. It won't shutdown the normal way (it'll just stay on the shutdown screen forever) and it never comes back from sleep without a BSOD along with other troubles that haven't been solved by updating drivers,etc.
I decided I want to do a clean Windows 8.1 re-install and upgrade on my laptop to get rid of these problems, but it's been ages since I last did this (back in Win2K times, I used to dual boot Slackware Linux) and I've bee reading about all this UEFI, Secure Boot,etc and quite frankly it's making me quite nervous. I was even planning on taking this chance to dual boot some linux distro, but it looks sooo difficult. Things are much more complicated these days for the tinkerer!
I need to make sure I can get back to a running system quickly.
For starters, here is how the hard drive is partitioned: [URL] .... And this is the Diskpart output : [URL] ....
Why do I have 5 partitions? I understand the recovery partition, the OS partition and (after lots of reading) the ESP partition, but I'm not sure about the others. What do I need to keep? I've been reading around and I see some people recommend wiping the whole drive and starting from scratch. Is this a good ide?
I'll create the installation media from a windows 8.1 MSDN ISO using a USB drive. When I start the installation process it will ask me where I want to reinstall it to. Do I just choose the OS partition? Won't the recovery partition be based on a Windows 8 image and be useless from now on?
What's the best way I can get back to a fully working system in case I screw up somehow? I've made an image of my drive using Macrium Reflect free edition. But I read here that I cannot make an image of a GPT disk. Will this image I made work for getting back to a working system quickly in case I screw up?
As a last resort, I've made a Recovery USB using the Dell Backup and Recovery Method. In the extreme case that I screw up real bad, will this work to get back a factory-state system even if I've wiped my hard drive clean? I'm assuming this tool is for users recovering after a dead hard drive so it should work , right?
I upgraded to 7 to 8 Pro using usb to do clean install. I want to reinstall again from usb and change the system language from French to English as not everything comes up in English by changing language settings. Device descriptions, system accounts, bitlocker screens are still French.
Is this possible? When I try the installation instructions are in French. Do I need an English ISO or can I change the one I have?
I have upgraded my Windows 8 PC to 8.1 yesterday and it seemed like everything is working fine until I tried to create System Image. I got an error 0x80780119 saying that there is to little space on one of the partitions.
I started looking into this problem and indeed one of the partitions does not meet the requirements. There are following partitions on my drive:
Partition 1 has only 13MB free space. Partition 2 has 70MB free space, partition 3 is MSFTRES, partition 4 is my C drive with around 35GB free and partition 5 is not included in system image. Partitions were create like this during installation of Windows 8 - clean install from scratch. I am using UEFI so the drive is GPT formatted.
So I thought, OK I can resize my C drive a little, move the partitions and expand the 1st one. I tried using GParted but it is not able to move the MSFTRES partition. It does not recognize the file system on it.
So the question is: Is it possible to "clean up" the 1st partition in anyway? If not, is there anything special about MSFTRES partition? Or can I just remove it and create it a little further and just flag it as msftres with GParted?
Just upgraded to Win 8.1 Pro from Win 8 on a Dell Latitude E6530. Everything was working fine; post upgrade, system does not recognize any of my SD cards upon insertion. [Don't even see a drive letter show up.] All other peripheral storage devices are fine.
I have an Acer aspire S3 Ultrabook Laptop (one of several laptops) and I am wanting to upgrade the os to win 8 pro. I have the win 8 pro pack,which is a full version i think,it does not say it is an "upgrade". Am i still able to use this win 8 pro pack to upgrade?( i thought upgrade packs are in fact cheaper)
There is the windows upgrade anytime link which i used just now,but it said that the windows key is invalid.It is a brand new pack with a new key.
I have read instructions online that say i need to insert the disk.But i am wondering if all the acer software will be deleted on C drive,although the instructions say it will be kept intact,as it has the acer recovery software in control panel on it. If the acer software is deleted how will i reinstall those? I am guessing that the win 8 pro disk will have all the right drivers?
I have a gateway laptop with windows 8 on it and need to use the recovery disks. When I put one it goes through the language and all that then it says switch to legacy bios mode, i do that and it says switch to uefi mode. I have gone thru this a thousand times now. what to do or how to do it. I know it has one other mode but I can't get it to that mode to try.
I have a windows 8.1 dell laptop ,for some reason system restore is not creating points manually or automatically, when I try to make a restore point manually the working bar just keeps moving at the sane time though I noticed in the device manger a generic volume shadow copy entry will show up with a yellow mark beside it ,I have tried maybe 10-15 times to uninstall this and try system restore again ,but this keeps repeating itself,
I have also went into safe mode but system restore points can't be made under safe mode, I did the repository thing where I rename that folder to old and reset repository in safe mode ,same result .
I was on my samsung laptop last night, and I found a folder called "Searches>Indexed locations". I saw it was taking up some space so i went through some of the files seeing that some were Type:Shortcuts. So I deleted them to free up a bit of space thinking "it's only a shortcut, can't harm it". Now some icons are missing from my windows 8 start screen and some programs have become inoperable because of missing files. I tried System restore to bring some of it back, it was going ok, then when it tried to restart, showed the samsung logo, then just blackscreened for 4+ hours. It was on , but blank. Haven't been using the laptop long so I don't really know the specs on it.
It came with no DvD/CD for me to use to format the laptop and I cant get it on to boot it up right for me to format it to begin with.
I atleast do know the graphics card was an AMD Radeon HD 7460
Can't seem to access Bios either.
One thing I forgot to mention which might have something to do with it, is I was using a custom windows 8 theme, because microsoft, being as stingy as they are, from what i assume does not enable you to have your own theme, so I had something called the "ribbon disabler and UXTheme Cracker" to use a custom windows 8 theme.
I had a windows 7 laptop which finally died but before it did a made a system image backup to my external hard drive so I have all the files. How do I load that onto my new windows 8.1 laptop so I have all my files there?
Currently I have win 7 Vaio. I'm buying the x carbon Lenovo touchscreen which had win 8. I love the set up I have on my Vaio system image. Can I use it on my win 8 x carbon Lenovo when it arrives?
So just few days ago i was playing with my laptop and it got really slow, I though it might be programs I've had opened or something but I just noticed something
My fan doesn't seem to work when my CPU needs it, i used core-temp and the temperatures are at something like 80C and it feels much hotter than usual, however when i use the battery management to clear out the dust, the fan seems to work
I tried to install tpfancontrol but it gave me a winio.sys error, after some googling, it seems this is the program that allows communication between the hardware and the system.
Im running on windows 8 on a lenovo laptop g500, and it seems my fan works, but can't communicate with my system when it needs it?
I was using my laptop and this came up on my screen [URL] .... After my laptop restarted, I used it for about 5 minutes before it froze. When i next used my laptop, It stayed on the Toshiba screen (the first screen when the laptop is turned on). After about 3 or 4 minutes, the laptop opens the automatic repair feature and this comes up on the screen [URL] ..... I have tried tapping both F8 and F12 throughout start up to try and repair the computer although this doesnt work either. I have opened the boot menu and tried to select the HDD Recovery option although it says no bootable media, please restart system.
I'm planning on moving an SSD system drive from a laptop that is starting to experience difficulties to a desktop PC.
I'm retired now and my laptop never moves off my desk, so this has offered an opportunity to upgrade at little expense. My laptop is an HP Compaq Presario CQ61, dual core Pentium 4 T4300 2.1GHz with 2 x 120GB SSD drives installed.
The desktop I want to upgrade with the SSD drives is an HP DX6120 Pentium 4 HTT 3.2GHz unit that I've picked up very cheap.
I know a clean install of either Windows 7 or Windows 8 would be best practice, but is there a way I could just transfer the disk to the PC ?
