HP Laptop upgrade from Vista - 4 frustrating failures!!

[gregrocker]

Don't think so. SIW2?

But F: presents zero problems in performance.

 

[jecook]

At this point perhaps another image backup called for.

 

[jecook]

Ok I guess I will leave it as F then.

 

[gregrocker]

Check performance.

I would run File System check from PW disk, or chkdsk.

 

[SIW2]

Don't change the drive letter - leave it as F.

Paragon did a great job there.

Well done for persevering jon.

My 7 partition sees itself as D - I have no problems, it doesn't need to be C.

Yes image it .

Are you in Singapore?

 

[gregrocker]

PW mounted the drives wrong? which is what Paragon sorted?

Never happened in 100+ of these. What do you think caused it?

Just askin.

+1 Jon. It was a long slog. Glad SIW2 was around.

 

[SIW2]

Just shows PW isn't perfect.

Luckily Paragon have great freebies.

 

[jecook]

Thanks to Greg and SIW2 I thought we would get there in the end despite my occasionally impatient cock-ups Thanks very much for your perseverance I am impressed with your knowledge and have learnt a lot not too mention picked up one or two usefile utilities.

A great forum which has proved to be a real lifeline.

I suppose I can now admit to having worked with computers since the 1970's when they filled large rooms, have been through DOS and all the stages of Windows, not to mention UNIX and LINUX but since Win98 and XP I have 'maintained an interest' but not really got into the nitty gritty of system fixing until now.

So much for HP's advice not to upgrade to Win7.

Now there is just the question of the other 4 [XP] computers in my home network ...

Many many thanks to both of you.

In answer to SIW2 I'm in Kuala Lumpur.

 

[jecook]

Time for some lunch I think...

 

[SIW2]

KL - great place - have fun.

Now there is just the question of the other 4 [XP] computers in my home network

:roflmao:

 

[gregrocker]

Is that utiity on Partition Pro 9.0 disk?

[edit: nevermind I find it on booted PP 9.0 following path SIW2 gave earlier.
I've had this disk for a year and didn't know it could do this. Of course I've not had to change a drive letter, tho I wanted to change a system drive, but knew better after borking OS twice trying to do that].

 

[jecook]

Just to comment on Greg's point about PW.

I did notice that it gave the drive letter as * which I assumed meant it would assign whatever letter was there originally. As noted above subsequent use of Paragon RKE showed that there was no letter assigned to the first partition but it would only allow me to apply either C, D or M-Z this, the drives between D & M had been assigned previously to CD/DVD and ext USB drives with multiple partitions. F had been assigned to the Win7 partition. Since the RKE would not see F as available it must have been assigned somewhere, but at the same time since W7 would not boot correctly (NTLDR missing) it was also not written where Windows expected.

Anyway the solution proved to be a simple matter of using Paragon RKE to assign first to C, and then, after another boot failure (autichk problem), going in second time and re-assigning back to F.

That then lead to a boot into the activation screen which just checked the existing licence and ok'd the installation.

Once again many thanks guys.

Utilities used were all freebies:
Belarc Advisor - to list installation settings and software licences etc
Partition Wizard Bootable CD - http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html
Paragon Backup & Recovery 10 Free : http://www.paragon-software.com/home/db-express/
Pargon Rescue Kit 9.0 Express bootable CD - http://www.paragon-software.com/home/rk-express/

plus of course the Windows utilities and Repair utilities on the Install disk

 

[SIW2]

Hi Greg,

Did you get the Adaptive restore add - on for your Paragon products - it's free :

Adaptive Restore (Add-on for Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite and Pro)

Just log into your Paragon account , go to downloads - it should be there:

http://www.paragon-software.com/login

You would use it to make an o/s bootable on new hardware - or load drivers during migration , or restore a Paragon image to new hardware, or make a .vhd botched up by another app. bootable, etc.

You can make .vhd 's with it as well - but if you only need microsoft .vhd's - you may as well use Windows sys img to do it - just use wbadmin command to make a MS .vhd of the partition of your choice.

 

[SIW2]

Hi Greg,

LOL. You will other functions on there - boot.ini corrector if you are running XP as well and need to point boot.ini at the right place.

Bcd corrector - the 9 series will recognize and add Vista entries ( but not 7, as the 9 series is pre -7 )

And a few other handy functions.

Is that utiity on Partition Pro 9.0 disk?

[edit: nevermind I find it on booted PP 9.0 following path SIW2 gave earlier.
I've had this disk for a year and didn't know it could do this. Of course I've not had to change a drive letter, tho I wanted to change a system drive, but knew better after borking OS twice trying to do that].

 

[gregrocker]

Hi Greg,

Did you get the Adaptive restore add - on for your Paragon products - it's free :

Adaptive Restore (Add-on for Hard Disk Manager 2009 Suite and Pro)

Just log into your Paragon account , go to downloads - it should be there:

http://www.paragon-software.com/login

You would use it to make an o/s bootable on new hardware - or load drivers during migration , or restore a Paragon image to new hardware, or make a .vhd botched up by another app. bootable, etc.

Awesome!

I've had good luck on most installs done to HD's moved back to machine after installed elsewhere, others haven't.

But this seems to assure it could be done in every case, and recommended here?

Can't wait to try it.

 

[SIW2]

It works brilliantly.

I am using the Virtualisation Manager 2010 corporate - it has a few extra bells and whistles - the Adaptive restore is excellent.

Just point the P2P function at the o/s partition/drive.

 

[JTCWCommsGuy]

I just finished reading through this entire thread and I'm now wondering what course of action would be best for me. I, too, have an HP laptop (HPX18t) bought March 2009 so I missed out on the free upgrade. I desparately want to move to Windows 7 after seeing it on a friends machine.

Having a Win7 Pro package, what else should I have at the ready before I start down the path. If I botch it, I'll have to wait until I'm back in my office to get back on this forum for help.

The post mentions at least the following:
a) Partition Wizard
b) Belarc Advisor

Do I need to get these and make them into CD before I start? And WHERE do I get these? Once I get started, the HP will be in a "Dead" state and I help will be hard to get.

So, before I start making dual partitions and the rest, what should I have ready?
I have only a 16GB thumb drive. Do I need a larger external drive to backup what I have before I start?

I'm a software engineer at Northrop Grumman, and we are mandated to use XP Pro. And I am NOT a systems integrator or an IT expert. I just write C# and C++ code in Visual Studio.

Please get me ready for the plunge. I can't take Vista anymore

 

[gregrocker]

Do you have XP and Vista on the machine now? You dont' say for sure.

If space allows, shrink Vista in Disk Management to make room for new Win7 install. Then install Win7 by booting DVD, doing a Custom install with Drive Tools to format partition first.

Follow this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/5166-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-vista.html

 

[jecook]

As you can see from the length of the thread I did a few things that were the result of impatience, and the time lag between posts. The advice I got here was great but one thing you do not say here is whether you want to try W7 with a dual boot or just go straight to W7.

Had I not needed to protect my daughter's work & software, I think I would have had a much easier time with a clean system install. I backed up regularly to a large USB external HD so that I could restore after a failed attempt at a fix.

The tools I used were Partition Wizard, Paragon Rescue Kit and Paragon Backup & Restore all as bootable CD/DVDS and all of which are available as free downloads (just Google them). Belarc Advisor, also free, is very useful for listing the hardware and software installed on the computer it is handy to do this before you start doing any installation.

I was advised that the upgrade option was not always successful and that clean install was better, since the computer involved was the one my daughter was using for her University work I didn't want to do a clean install in case we lost something vital.

Using the downloaded tools you can backup your system before you start. I also copied the System folder containing the Driver files to another partition. After installing W7 the System manager had one or two bits of hardware that had warnings and in may case I managed to cure these by using the old Vista drivers.

You have definitely come to the right forum Gregrocker and SIW2 and friends were a great help, if you follow their advice, with patience, you will be in good hands.

Good luck,

Jon

 

[JTCWCommsGuy]

I guess I am just stupid when it comes to this. I did a full backup of the Vista system to a USB hard drive thinking that I'd be able to access my old programs from there. Then I did a custom install. I didn't try to do a dual boot. I figured the full backup was my lifeboat. Now I have a Windows 7 system which works fine. BUT, no fingerprint reader - lost; I also lost access to my email account in Outlook. I find that I cannot use the restore from backup in Win 7.

The HP recovery partition is still there, but I cannot figure out how to use it to go back to Vista and save off the things I lost and try again. The email is fixable, but I sure do miss the finger print reader. It saved me from having to remember a ton of passwords.

At this point, is there any way to get the Fingerprint reader working again?

Once I get that fixed, the recovery partition is the next to die.