Hello Fernando, and thanks for posting this.
I am hopeful that this holds the key to resolving the issues I’ve had with upgrading a new laptop that comes with an OEM version of Windows 8.1 (now upgraded to Windows 10) with an Intel SSD drive as the OS drive.
The laptop is a Lenovo Flex and it shipped with a 1TH HDD which I’d like to replace with an Intel 530 series 240GB SSD as the OS drive, with the 1TH drive replacing the CDROM drive as the data drive (I’ve already got the caddy to convert the bay).
The problem I’ve experienced is that bootiing into recovery (which I burnt to an external HDD) or simply copying the the partitions from the 1TH drive to the SSD results in error which I believe is due to missing drivers for the SSD in the OEM image. The system has an Intel(R) 8 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI Controller (verbatim from Device Manager)
1. Which Intel drivers do I need to incorporate into the images to be able to install onto the SSD.
2. I also went through the OP instructions (on a Windows 10 PC) but the process fails on loading he image with error 23. Any insight into what’s happening?
3. I tried running NTLite on a Vista Business machine, but it dies a silent death, i.e I only get a prompt for elevation and nothing happens after, would you have any insight into this?
@Nepaluz:
What happens if you remove the HDD from your Lenovo and make a clean install Win10.10586.0 (TH2) on the SSD without entering a license key?
Maybe your windows will be activated at once, as you already made an upgrade from Win8.1
Not necessary for a test but if you want to integrate actual patches look HERE for the latest information. This will lift your win10 to build 10586.36 at once.
Although in German I hope you’ll be able to understand the information published there. Otherwise don’t hesitate to ask.
I think Fernando (<— “Prosit Neujahr!”) will help you to find the right drivers.
Regards, Nemo
Maybe, but I have not tried doing that. Actually, I still have the recovery media from 8.1 and have not yet created one from the 10 install. But I think the key suggestion you have is whether Win10 would be activated, but I have the hurdle of not being able to even boot into windows when I install (via recovery media) on the SSD.
Thanks for the link. I’ll read and try to understand what they are up to though I’d be content with even re-installing 8.1 on the SSD the "upgrading" again to 10 … so long as I can install.
That’s my hope too. Of course, there’s the option (documented as working) of using a non OEM install then re-installing any drivers shipped in the OEM from Lenovo’s site, that would be messier than, IMO, injecting the required drivers into the OEM image.
Saying that, I have been unable to load the install.swm file(s) (there are five in total and NTLite wants to first convert them to wim!) but only managed to load the boot.wim file. Would adding the driver just to the boot.wim file suffice to have the driver copied over during install?
@Nepaluz:
Try MS’ Media Creation Tool for Win10 (change the link to your favourite language!) to get an official ISO or the opportunity to create a DVD or a bootable flash drive (~8 GB).
If you want to integrate patches or drivers the included .\sources\Install.esd must be converted to *.WIM. But that’s the only disadvantage; you can even choose to get an AiO with x64 and x86.
And then make a test with your SSD as proposed above. Remove the existing HDD.
Regards , Nemo
@Nemo
Again, thanks for your input. I am aware of being able to download a Win10 ISO image from Microsoft, and I believe (as is documented for Win 8) that the install will be succesfull though with the caveat, for a clean install of Win 10, that we do not know whether Windows activation will work (not to mention the loss of Lenovo optimsations).
Thus my preference at this stage for the NTLite OEM install / boot driver modification route. I hope you understand.
@ Nepaluz:
Welcome at Win-RAID Forum!
There is no need to add any drivers to the OS you want to get installed onto your new SSD. There is no difference regarding this point between a HDD and an SSD.
Here are my advices:
1. As Nemo already has proposed, I recommend to download the “November Edition” v1511 of your desired Win10 ISO file from >this< page (maybe you have to customize the url address to your language).
2. Create a bootable USB Flash drive containing the Win10 media by using the tool named Rufus.
3. Unplug your current system drive and attach the SSD instead.
4. Boot off the USB Flash drive and do a fresh install of Win10 onto the SSD.
Since you already have successfully upgraded from Win8.1 to Win10 with the exact same system (except the system drive), the clean Win10 installation will be automaticly activated by Microsoft via internet.
Believe me: It will work without any doubts. I have done it already very often.
By the way: If you install v1511 of Windows 10, you can even activate it directly by entering your Win8.1 CD-Key.
Good luck!
Dieter (alias Fernando)
@Fernando
Thanks for the input. Since you confirm that the activation will be automatic, then I am tempted to try the Win 10 ISO download. Just to clarify, since it is an OEM system, I do not have ANY keys at all neither do I have any install DVD or media for that matter, NOT even a sticker on the laptop with the code. The box contained just the laptop and the power adapter.
On a positive note, I could always fall back to the HDD should the activation on the newly installed SSD fail.
You can let a tool like the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder (>LINK<) read the hidden Win8.1 Key from the BIOS for you.
… or save $30 and try another tool: Advanced Tokens Manager (ATM) on your present Win10 on HDD.
Make a restore if activation won’t be successful after a clean install (without entering keys) on your SSD. It may be necessary to boot once or twice before activation will be shown.
Regards, Nemo
The free version of the Magical Jelly Bean Keyfinder is able to recover the key for Windows 7, 8 and Office 2010.
Did you test it? On the referrenced site it reads as "Recover product key for Windows 7, 8, 8.1 from BIOS No Yes"
But let’s wait what @Nepaluz will tell us.
Regards, Nemo
Did you test it? On the referrenced site it reads as "Recover product key for Windows 7, 8, 8.1 from BIOS No Yes"
No, I didn’t yet test it, but on >this< page the developer says "Yes".
Note: This tool will not be able to recover the Win8.1 source key from within a running Win10. It may just present the generic universal Win10 key (Home key starting with TX9XD, PRO starting with VK7JG).
That’s why I recommended ATM.
If @Nepaluz had asked earlier my advice would have been
- generating a GenunineTicket.xml on Win8.1 with <W10-DVD>\sources\GatherOSState.exe
- and after a cleanly installed Win10 injecting *.xml. I think you know my article on Win-Lite.de?!
Regards, Nemo
@Fernando and @Nemo
Thanks for all the input. Just wanted to provisionally update on progress.
I had to download the images from another location (bandwidth limits on my home access), but that proved impossible with the media creation tool as I was using a public PC that did not allow running downloaded programs. I therefore used the link that @Fernando gave and was able to download a single language Win10 (the laptop is a 64 bit but I downloaded both). Later today when I get free time, I’ll open up the laptop, remove the HDD, install the SSD and Win10 64. I’ll update as soon as I’ve I’m done.
PS. I’ve been following the conversation about getting the key. Since I already upgraded the shipped Win8.1 to Win10, I suppose the suggested routes will not work in my instance seeing they only apply for Win7/8/8.1 and not 10, or am I mistaken? After I’ve burnt the ISO, I’ll check to see if I can generate the xml, but still, I think you refered to Win8 rather than Win10. Anyways, I’ll keep you posted on both and thanks again for the all the input thus far.
It’s no use any longer (with Win10) to generate a GenuineTicket.xml!
May be it may work or not. I didn’t test it.
After a test in Virtual Machine: It can’t affect your current Win10 on HDD if you run GatherOSState.exe.
Copy <DVD>\sources\gatherosstate.exe to your desktop, let it generate GenuineTicket.xml and copy/save the *.xml to an external drive. If needed later for activation on SSD drop me a line. It may enhance my experience in those cases. I’ll tell you how to proceed.
Try to get Adavanced Tokens Manager (ATM) NOW, run it on your HHD and save the generated files externally in order to have the license information and tokens as an assurance if activation wll fail on SSD.
If you’re familiar with NTLite - I still work with Win Toolkit - try to integrate the two patches named on Win-Lite (Download with IE!) They lift the Build# from 10586.0 to 10586.36 and may decrease the time for installation if your bandwith to internet is poor.
Regards, Nemo
PS.
Editted several times after dinner.
OK, your edits came in good time as I was about to begin though, I discovered I had another query just as I was about to begin.
Should I delete all partitions on the SSD or just make a single partition and format it? If the latter, what should I format it as?
NOTE: I currently have the SSD attached to a Vista Business machine.
EDIT: I’ve run the gatherosstate.exe and it generated the GenuineTicket.txt file … do I really need to get the others?
This is what I recommend to do:
- Create a bootable USB Flash drive containing the OS image by using the latest version of the tool Rufus. The chosen partition scheme should be "GPT Partition Scheme for UEFI", if the PC is UEFI compatible. In this case you have to choose "Large FAT32" as File System. If you don’t want/can install the OS in UEFI mode, you can choose the options "MBR Partition Scheme for UEFI" and "NTFS" as File System.
- Boot off the device named "(UEFI) <Name of the USB Stick>".
- When you come to the point, when you have to decide, where the OS shall be installed, delete all shown partitions of the target device and create 1 new partition for your future system drive (Drive C:). The size depends on your personal preferences (I would choose ca. 150-170 GB for the system drive and create later a second partition on the SSD as fast storage place for Downloads and important personal data). Since you have created the system drive by using the Win10 own Diskpart.exe, you don’t have to care about the SSD alignment.
- The Win10 Setup will automaticly create the required additional (usually hidden) partitions and then install the OS onto the freshly created future partition C.
Good luck!
@ nepaluz: @ Nemo:
Since our discussion has nothing to do with the topic of this thread, I want to move it into a separate thread. Which topic title shall I give it?
All partitioning and formating shound be made during the installation of Win10. No need to do it under Vista.
I think it’s better to separate Win&applications and data on two partitions.
After choice of language and keyboard layout (which one?)
- Ignore input of key
- Delete all partitions on SSD
- Tell Win to create a partition of 131,572 MiB *); a primary system partition of 500 MiB and a start partition of 128 GiB *) will be created
- Create a partition on the rest of the space
- format every partition
- choose 128 ) GiB partition for inst of W10
- proceed with installation; but take care which personal data you want to be sent to MS: “Proceed” on every dialog is not a good choice I think; choose the other ones which hardly can be recognized with light blue on dark blue background.
) I don’t know the size of your SSD or your needs. Other suitable sizes are 66,036 or 98,804 MiB
Downloading and running ATM doesn’t take much of your time. Do it!
Regards, Nemo
PS:
In the meantime Fernando published his advice for installation of Win10. There are only slight differences to my proposal.
PS2: @Fernando : “Clean Installation of Win10 instead of upgrading from Win7/8.x” or “Change of HDD to SSD under Win10 without loss of activation”?! I’m sure Nepaluz will tell us if it works as proposed.
OK, been up for the better part of the evening and could not get the installation to succeed.
@Fernando - I realise this is off-topic and would not mind you choosing the appropriate thread topic to assign to it when you move this part.
Having done some google research, it seems the clean Win 10 installation on an Intel 530 series 240GB SSD fails due to drivers for the the Intel Chipset as the SSD is intermitently recognised by the setup program, and when the SSD is recognised, setup then fails at the next step saying there is no fixed drive to store temporary files to (I can not even delete or create partitions at that stage as it fails with an error!).
So I suppose back on-topic (and my initial RFI).
1. Which drivers should I incorporate in the now Win 10 setup?
2. Can I simply find the chipset driver in the working installation and copy it to a USB to include / specify during setup?
The chipset (per Win 10 control panel -> Device Manager is Intel(R) 8 Series Chipset Family SATA AHCI controller and it is iaStorA.sys file version 13.0.2.1000
Thanks again for all the input thus far.
I am pretty sure, that it will work.
Recently I have done a fresh Win10 installation onto at least 5-6 different HDDs/SSDs by just replacing the system disk drive within my Z97 system. Although I didn’t enter any Product Key, the OS had been automaticly activated by Microsoft.
By the way: This happened even after having changed the CPU from Haswell to Broadwell. I suspect, that the Win10 activation will be valid as long as the mainboard has not been replaced.
Thanks. I will wait with the movement of the related posts until we got your report about how you succeeded to get Win10 installed onto your SSD.
Since I really doubt, that this is true for a clean install onto any SSD (a cloning of the OS installation from a HDD to an SSD may be something else), I would like to get the source of this statement.
No one.
No resp. that wouldn’t make any sense.
1. There are no Intel Chipset drivers available (just information=text files).
2. Your Intel Chipset will be automaticly detected by the Win10 Setup.