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 Post Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 6:51 pm 
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I need some more advice before I proceed with my 2 hard drive Windows 7 Pro and Windows 10 system. I installed the 4 button switch that I mentioned above and that works great as far as shutting down one OS and opening another, so now I have my Windows 7 Pro initial OS on button 1 and a new install of Windows 7 Pro on button 2. The only hiccup is that Windows 7 Pro on button 2 does not connect to the net even though both systems are connected to my Comcast Modem through the same Ethernet cable. Aside from that, Windows 10 is going on that drive and I am not sure how to go about doing that. The bios is set to boot Windows 10 from the dvd drive but how do I get rid of everything on the drive before I do that?


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 Post Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 8:01 pm 
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An image backup is a complete backup of the drive that allows a pretty fast recovery of the image to get back up and running.

I no longer bother with image backups, preferring to simply make sure that my data is backed up and copied to multiple locations. An image backup/restore allows you to avoid reinstalling Windows, all updates, and software programs (that will then need activation/registration in many cases) as well as restoring your data. Think of it as a "factory restore on steroids" in that the image restore puts the PC in the exact condition of your last image backup -- which means Windows and updates, programs and updates, and data are all as up to date as your last image backup, whereas a factory restore will put the PC back into the state that it was when you first powered it on after purchasing it.

If you don't have more than a few installed programs and don't mind dealing with a reinstall/register to recover from a major issue such as a system drive failure, an image backup isn't needed.

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 Post Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 8:04 pm 
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First a note: I just moved this thread to Partitioning and Dual Booting as that is what we are doing and that is the forum it belongs. :)

Second is that I like the SATA box you bought. I didn't know that they made such a critter. A while back I was considering building such a unit myself to be able to turn off my internal drive that I use for system images. I may have to take a look at this. :)

As to your current questions:

1) I am going to guess that the Windows 7 install that will not connect to the internet was installed on another system first. While Windows 7 does a pretty nice job of being able to boot in such a case on different hardware that does not mean that all the hardware will automatically work. If you go to Device Manager (I believe you know how) you will probably see listings for unknown hardware. You should just have to install drivers for your network card. If you have a driver CD for the system you can do from that or just go to the manufacturer's site and download the needed drivers. Of course you would need to do this from the install that does connect. Just copy the download to a flash drive to port over to the install that will not connect. Do look at device Manager as there may be other hardware that is not working properly.

2) As to wiping everything off the drive that is to get Windows 10... The Windows 10 installs I have done have been in the upgrade format from either Windows 7 or 8 so there was no concern with this. To be honest I would not have bought a retail copy of 10 unless the Windows 7 install on the target drive failed to boot. If the Windows 10 install follows previous versions of the install you should see an option to format the target drive. The possible problem here is if your system manufacturer does not offer drivers for Windows 10 and Microsoft has not developed their own to cover.

To be honest I'd go with getting the non-connecting install of Windows 7 working properly with all devices and hardware installed. I would then make sure that I have all the software that I'm worried about installed. I would then do ALL Windows Updates. You would then have an icon by your clock to upgrade to Windows 10. Honestly this is the option I would probably use as it will look at your system and let you know of compatibility issues.

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 Post Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 8:30 pm 
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sboots wrote:
If you don't have more than a few installed programs and don't mind dealing with a reinstall/register to recover from a major issue such as a system drive failure, an image backup isn't needed.-steve

I do and do not agree with Steve's statement above.

While I agree that a drastic system failure is not really that big of a deal as long as you have all your data backed up; what do most people consider data? Most people would just consider their libraries such as document, pictures, etc.. How about all your emails? Now I admit that I have my email storage on a separate physical drive other than my OS drive so this is not a factor to me as it IS actually part of my data. In fact ALL of my data is on a separate drive. As to data a system image helps to preserve 'data' that most people just do not think of as data along with all installed programs.

There is also the time factor. As does Steve I have my Windows install disks and I also have all my program installs including key codes burned to multiple CD/DVDs. On my media system the OS disk is 143GB in size. There are a LOT of programs and a lot of installs if I did not have a system image. Could I still restore my system without having an image to what it is right now? Yes I could but it would take days. With a system image it takes ~20 minutes.

Anyway, if you want to learn more about system images please start a new thread asking. This thread already involves enough and I'd rather not see it go in such a tangent. As long as you do not really care about the Win 7 install on the 10 target drive you can proceed without an image as your main Win 7 drive will be totally isolated by not even being powered up. I hope that you do ask about images as they can save you a LOT of time if you experience a catastrophic failure of your system.

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 Post Posted: Fri Mar 25, 2016 9:06 pm 
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Yes, email is data. And, yes, reinstalling to factory condition and reinstalling and activating a slew of programs and updating is a major pain. :-)
Image backup makes things a whole lot easier.

In my case, email is on an Exchange server and web mail accounts with some email archived to .pst files (Outlook from before I went with a hosted Exchange account). My Office install is Office 365, so a reinstall is done online and fairly fast. I have a handful of programs installed that would need to be reinstalled/registered/configured. I am obsessive about data replication, though.

-steve

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 Post Posted: Sat Mar 26, 2016 7:22 am 
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jaylach wrote:
As to your current questions:

1) I am going to guess that the Windows 7 install that will not connect to the internet was installed on another system first. While Windows 7 does a pretty nice job of being able to boot in such a case on different hardware that does not mean that all the hardware will automatically work. If you go to Device Manager (I believe you know how) you will probably see listings for unknown hardware. You should just have to install drivers for your network card. If you have a driver CD for the system you can do from that or just go to the manufacturer's site and download the needed drivers. Of course you would need to do this from the install that does connect. Just copy the download to a flash drive to port over to the install that will not connect. Do look at device Manager as there may be other hardware that is not working properly.



Hi Jay,I was able to go to the device manager and see that the Ethernet had problems. I then went to the motherboard cd for this computer and it had the drivers for the Ethernet and once that was installed, everything worked ok and I was able to access the internet using Windows 7. At that point, I decided just to put the Windows 10 DVD in the drive and boot up from that. It was very weird because it immediately displayed a 4 panel window and nothing else happened for at least 10 minutes and then the install began. Windows 10 installed without incident from that point on and I am now making this post using Windows 10. It is going to take a while to find out where everything is in Windows 10. Other than that, I am able to switch from 10 to 7 using that button switch.

Thanks very much to everyone for your help.


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 Post Posted: Sun Mar 27, 2016 7:32 am 
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I'd like to say a word about backups, that is, image backups and other types of total c:drive recovery programs. I started using a desktop pc in 1999. In all these years I have NEVER, even once, had to reinstall Windows and start over from scratch because I always had at least one backup program protecting me. In the early days it usually took around 40 minutes to recover. Today, because of changing technology and better backup programs, it only takes a couple minutes. That's a couple minutes versus however long it takes to reinstall Windows from scratch, all of your programs from scratch, and THEN trying to remember all of your favorite settings.
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