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Please help: I did a clean install of windows 10, but my backup was from windows 8, so...

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Hi. I am using Acronis True Image 2014, full version. 

A few months ago I did an Acronis True Image backup of my hard disk. At that time I was running Windows 8.1, which was preloaded into the computer when I bought it.

And this week, my hard drive somehow became corrupted, I think from overheating. So my friend helped me do a clean install of his store bought copy of windows 7, and then we upgraded my computer to windows 10.

So now I have Windows 10, and I am wondering, if I try to restore  the backup of my disk from when I had Windows 8.1... what will happen? Will it format my drive? What will happen to the Windows 10 I currently have? Will the backup restore my old system with a working windows 8.1 like i had  when I backed it up? 

Is there some way I can keep Windows 10 and restore everything?

And will all of my old programs I backed up work again? Or will I have to reinstall my programs again?

Also, do I have to create a boot disk in order to do this? Or will it restart without a disk?

I am confused. So I haven't done the restore yet, because I am worried it  might mess things up.

Can someone please help me?

Thanks

D.

 

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Daniel,

You will need to create a rescue media (boot disk).

If you perform a restore of the 8.1 backup, your computer will revert back to Windows 8.1.

My first recommendation is to backup your Windows 10 installation. 

I don't know of any way to restore "programs & apps" from a backup into an operating system so the programs would operate.  I don't think it can be done.  You can restore your user data files, by mounting the backup image and copying from the image to the desired folders.

Probably the easiest path forward would be to restore the 8.1 backup...confirm the computer works properly and the programs/apps work properly and all of your data is recovered...then upgrade to Win 10.

FtrPilot

FtrPilot wrote:

Daniel,

You will need to create a rescue media (boot disk).

If you perform a restore of the 8.1 backup, your computer will revert back to Windows 8.1.

My first recommendation is to backup your Windows 10 installation. 

I don't know of any way to restore "programs & apps" from a backup into an operating system so the programs would operate.  I don't think it can be done.  You can restore your user data files, by mounting the backup image and copying from the image to the desired folders.

Probably the easiest path forward would be to restore the 8.1 backup...confirm the computer works properly and the programs/apps work properly and all of your data is recovered...then upgrade to Win 10.

FtrPilot

Hi. When you say it will revert back to Windows 8.1, will all of the programs I had installed when I did the backup work after I do the restore?

Is there any chance that the Windows won't be authorized after I do that. When I bought this laptop, it came with Windows pre-installed, but the stikcer on the computer doesn't have a serial number or anything, and neither does the box.

So when you said you don't know of any way to restore programs and apps into an operating system so that they would work; I think you meant without doing a full restore right? Because with a normal restore of my backup  they will work, correct?

Also, this is probably a dumb question, but: You said to backup my Windows 10 first.  But 2 questions re that. 
- When I backup my windows 10, do I need to worry about it overwriting my other backup (of my windows 8), or it will let me give it a different name, and it will just be a seperate backup?

-Also, when my friend did a fresh install of Windows 7 yesterday and I upgraded to windows 10, I got to do the free activation thing, it was kind of difficult to activate, but it is activated now. But I don't have a box for Windows 10 with an activation code of course. So,  If I backup Windows 10, and then restore it later, will it STILL be activated?  Otherwise I have would to buy a Windows 10 license. :P

 

 

 

 

Daniel, if you restore your older Windows 8.1 backup image then this will overwrite everything on your hard drive and bring you back to where you were at the time the backup was created, so your Windows 8.1 will still be activated as it was at that time too, plus all the programs / data you had will be back again.

You will lose any changes and any updated programs and data that you have added since you performed the Windows 8.1 backup.

If you take a full disk backup of your current Windows 10 installation then you will have the options to go back to this if you need to do so in the future, plus you can also restore data from this backup to your Windows 8.1 system if you need to.  When making a new backup of Windows 10 please ensure that you put this in a different folder on your external disk drive to the one holding your Windows 8.1 backup image to avoid any possibility of one overwriting the other.

Acronis products cannot be used to migrate Programs between different versions of Windows or computers, so any programs that are missing from your current version of Windows (8.1 or 10) would need to be reinstalled.

Lastly, you do not need a licence key (COA) for Windows 8.1 or 10 - these versions of Windows are licenced based on the hardware signature of the computer where they are installed, so if you have already activated both of these versions of Windows on this same computer, you should be good to go with which version you want to use, or to restore back to 8.1 then upgrade again from there to 10.

Thanks Steve, and FtrPilot!

Btw, when I started to do my acronis restore of my Windows 8 system, but quickly bailed out and cancelled... it was going to restart my computer and proceed with the restore, even though I hadn't made a rescue disk ("bootable media").

What would happen if you let your computer restart without the rescue disk? Would the restore not be able to go forward when your computer restarted? Would you be stuck?

So to create the disk, do I just go to the backup I want to restore and click on "create bootable media"? And then after doing that am i ready to proceed with the restore?

PS: Can I use the same disk for each restore, or do I need to create bootable media for every restore I do?

Daniel, if you let ATIH restart to perform the restore, then it would have created a special boot environment using a Linux OS boot image to do the job, however, this has caused problems for some people because of altering the Windows Boot Configuration Data to enable this boot environment.

It is probably safer to create the bootable rescue media on DVD or USB stick and boot from this to do the restore then the Windows BCD store is left untouched.

To create the bootable rescue media, either navigate through the Start > Programs > Acronis menus until you get to the Tools options then select the Bootable rescue media builder option, or do this from within the Acronis application GUI by clicking on the Tools icon in the left side, then selecting the same option.

Once you have created the bootable rescue DVD then it can be used as many times as needed.

Daniel,

To state the obvious cliche...no such thing as a dumb question.  What is dumb is doing something you are unsure of and regretting it because you didn't ask before you did it.  I guess that  what I am saying is: if you have a question, please ask...we will answer to the best of our ability.

My original first recommendation:  ...."is to backup your Windows 10 installation"... should get you in the mode that anytime you do a lot of work on your computer, like install an app or program, do a backup.

Having backups will give you recovery options if something goes wrong.

Reading through the thread, I believe Steve has answered all of your questions.  If you have any more, let us know.

FtrPilot