Ive got an error on a windows 10 HP laptop with the OS and i need to do a clean install of the W10.   Ive never done a windows clean install (done plenty of Mac ones) so im trying to figure out everything i need in advance.   So far my plan is to :   backup all data download W10 from microsoft  , install it onto a USB drive, boot into the drive and run the installer   Once the clean install of W10 is complete as i understand i need to install drivers for various bits of hardware, for this HP have a driver page for my laptop . Where i currently cant make my mind up is wether i should download the individual drivers from that page and install them (the issue with this is im a bit confused on some of them as there seem to be 2 bluetooth drivers, and other options on a couple of other drivers, due to what hardware the specific laptop has).   I was also told to check out the HP Setup Assistant software which apperently functions like a driver install wizard, by scanning your hardware and then downloading the required drivers.   What is preferable to download the individual drivers or the use the HP setup assistant ?   Is there also a test / tool i can run at the end of the processes after the new OS and drivers have been installed, to check nothing is missing ?   Will i need to enable security features etc, or does a clean copy of W10 default to a locked down mode ?
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I want to reinstall Windows on a machine which has some very obscure drivers. I don't much fancy having to hunt round for them (that's if I'm able to locate them at all). Is it possible to save or backup already installed drivers? If so, how do I do this? How do I then go about installing these 'saved' drivers?
46344
I'm trying to install bang and olufsen drivers, or HP hd audio driver, as only 2 of the 4 speakers work and the 2 amps don't work in ubuntu  lspci -v | grep -i audio 00:03.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Broadwell-U Audio Controller (rev 09)     Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Broadwell-U Audio Controller 00:1b.0 Audio device: Intel Corporation Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller (rev 03)     Subsystem: Hewlett-Packard Company Wildcat Point-LP High Definition Audio Controller   The volume is terrible. Is there any way to fix this?  The speakers work perfectly on the pre-installed Windows 8.
23983
I purchased a laptop with with Windows 7. The OEM did not provide the disc, but there is a Windows installation with a recovery partition. The Windows 7 machine has not been setup or activated.  I need to install a different operating system for testing. Installing the new operating system side-by-side will cause more trouble than its are worth, so I am going to install the new operating system over Windows 7. That is, I am going to "blow out" the existing Windows 7 installation.  Later, I may want to be able to revert to Windows 7. My question is, how do I backup the current Windows 7 installation, without setup or activation, so I can use it again in the future, if desired?    Many existing questions and answers, like ,  and , presume the machine is setup. (I don't have an HP but I expect the process is similar).  I am trying to avoid the setup process because I want the "cleanest" untainted image as possible.    And so I am clear on what I am asking: I am looking for specific instructions, and not vague advice. For example, call out a tool you have used, and provide the two or three steps needed.  Sorry about this item. Without it, its seems like (1) the question could be vague or broad; and (2) I might create a useless backup image that does not restore (and I won't find out until sometime in the future). And testing a broken backup image will blow out things without a way to restore.
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I am upgrading my PC, but I'm sticking to my old HDD and gfx card. I would like to avoid reinstalling Win 8. Is this possible? Or, at least, is it possible to use Windows 8's refresh pc option?  UPDATE  It worked like a charm. Windows acted as if it was the first boot and displayed the "Getting devices ready %  " progress bar. I am not sure if this proves you can do it in every scenario, but my new gear is relatively modern (some gigabyte board with two PCIe 3.0 slots and USB 3.0 support + i5), so I guess we can agree the reinstall is unnecessary in most cases.
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A Windows-7 laptop was upgraded to Windows-10 during the Microsoft free upgrade period when they were nudging users to migrate away from 7 to 10.  The system is sluggish and crash prone: I would like create a fresh install with a new SSD from a Windows 10 install .iso burned to a USB drive.  Is it possible (and how can) the the license-key from the old drive be recovered and migrated to a fresh install?   If this is not the right question to ask, I would appreciate edits to the questions: thank you.
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I use:   HP Pavilion dm4-3001tx Entertaiment Notebook PC Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit   In  it has two graphic cards.     But in  it only has 1 graphic card.    And in several programs, it tells me that I need to configure my graphic card for better performance. Let's take nox for instance    So, I'm guessing my AMD drivers is not installed properly.  I did reinstall my OS but I'm using the same windows as before (which is windows 7 64bit) and a driver from HP official site. I've also installed HP Support Assistant to check my drivers but everything is seems to be updated (according to HP Software).  Any solution to show my AMD graphic into dxdiag, or remove nox graphic suggestion (as it means no problem with my graphic cards anymore)?
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I have recently purchased a Windows laptop with the intention of installing Linux on it.  My question is about the existing Windows installation (note that as an ultrabook, my shiny new computer does not have a CD drive, so I don't know what the recovery media is).    I would rather not dual boot, but will have occasional reasons to use Windows, so I see 2 options, both of which involve a VM:   Use a VM to point to the Windows partition . Install Linux as the only OS and then install Windows as a guest in e.g. VirtualBox.   I can see how to do #1 (and I can also see some of the potential problems that will come from multiple OSes reading the same partition).    About #2: if I completely wipe the HDD and install Linux only, can I use the Windows serial # to install a copy of Windows (8.1 to be specific) as a VM?  Or will I have some issue, even though it is a legitimate serial #?
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I am having a problem getting a specific device to work, and I am trying to start from square one by making sure there are absolutely no leftover files from driver installs on my system. Specifically I'm trying to get rid of the UC-Logic drivers for a Monoprice 10x6 tablet.   However, I have found copies of the driver files in the windows DriverStore\FileRepository. But windows will not let me delete any folders from that location.  The best info I have found so far is to use pnputil.exe, however, since the drivers are not currently installed, it is not listed as an inf file that I can remove.   I could, as a scorched earth policy, jump into OS X and just delete them from there, but I'm worried that this may cause me issues. I would much rather find the 'proper' way of doing it.
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I am in a situation where I cannot use Magical Jelly Bean Product Key Finder since the hard drive has failed on a particular system from HP.  Sadly HP will only sell restore discs and I don't have the luxury of waiting a few days for these to arrive.  I do have a retail disc from another system and have read that a retail copy of Windows 8 (not 8.1) will extract the OEM key from the BIOS in such cases.  Is this indeed the truth?
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I’ve had a laptop fail (CPU failure according to the blinking LED) and was wondering what steps I could take to transfer its hard drive to a new machine and have it boot. It currently has Windows 10 installed (upgraded from Windows 8.1, Windows 8 before that, and originally Windows 7).  I’ll probably start by taking a backup image of the disk. The replacement laptop hasn’t arrived as yet, it’s of a similar vintage. The old machine was a HP ProBook (don't recall the model off the top of my head), and the replacement a Dell Latitude 6420.  I of course want to avoid having to reinstall and reconfigure all the applications on the drive.
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I'm about to purchase an Asus motherboard with EFI firmware and wanted to prepare myself for installing Windows and Debian once the hardware arrives. I was hoping that someone who has gone down this road could give me a few pointers.  What preparations should I make before attempting to install Windows 7 and Debian on a new UEFI based system?
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I have an Asus R500VD laptop which came with the preinstalled Windows 8. As actually this computer will be used by my grandmother (and she's only using win 7) I'd like to downgrade it.  Thanks to other thread here, I was able to successfully boot computer from Windows 7 USB stick, but unfortunately during install I got a message:  A required CD/DVD drive device driver is missing. (...)   and I can't get pass it... This is what I've done:   I've downloaded all drivers from Asus Website (), unzip and copied to visible location for windows 7 installation - I've picked each one of them, none has helped. As I belive it's some kind of problem with SATA/RAID/AHCI drivers I went to Intel site and downloaded various "Intel Rapid Storage Technology" drivers - a lot of them were recognized by win7, but none of them helped.   Does anyone have an idea what can I do next? Any help would be really appreciated.
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I have just performed a fresh installation of Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit on my lenovo e330 laptop. I managed to successfully download and install most of its drivers, but still, a "PCI Device" appears under "other devices" in the device manager.  What could it be? How can I check what is missing?
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I bought the wireless adapter to use with a computer without internet access but I can't figure out how to install it with just a USB with the driver on it. I've read a few articles on how to install the driver but they all require me to have internet access and I don't have internet. I'm completely new to Ubuntu. If you can help that would be great. Thanks!  Ps: I have the latest version of Ubuntu as of 7-5-16.
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I have an HP laptop, and I smashed the display, but I work on an external monitor.  I want to reinstall Windows, but the external monitor works only if Windows is installed. What can I do?
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I have a brand new, unopened laptop with Windows 10 Home that, due to a standardized test that my spouse will have to take on it in late July, I cannot put Windows 10 Creator on.  I understand that this will leave the laptop less secure, and I am rather mad about it, but I have no control over the testing software.  They made it very clear that Windows 10 Creator is not supported, and that it should not be installed prior to the exam.  When I open this laptop up, I would like to make my laptop as secure as I can by getting as many updates as possible without installing Windows 10 Creator.  However, updates rarely identify themselves clearly, so I am not sure how to know when I have even encountered the Windows 10 Creator update.  Can anyone tell me how to know which update to avoid?  Also, (and this is not strictly part of the question), any further advice about how to secure this thing without being up to date on Windows updates would also be appreciated.
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OK, please, following you have an updated one step ahead question regarding my first question post on the title.  The question now is, how possibly get some info or tracing/debug on, which possible reason is leading to this error referring to SYSPREP.  In the net I found several posts for this, and the following link do have quite exact instructions what to look at and try, and I have also been following most of them, except maybe one-two, which I now will still follow on a next Upgrade trial in few hours.  ->   Here you have a summary of the background info for this case:   Windows 10 Anniversary Upgrade is stuck at ab. 32% done, in a minute after the second (despite named as FIRST_BOOT) restart at 30%, during the actual final update process phase, with blank grey display and power-on after an emergency power-off in a quarter or so, the Upgrade trial will got reversed and following error splash window will pop-up:     We couldn't install Windows 10      We've set your PC back to the way it was just before you started installing Windows 10.      0xC1900101 - 0x30018    The installation failed in the FIRST_BOOT phase with an error during SYSPREP operation  the laptop is some 7yrs old with dual-core AMD 1.9GHz 32-bit, memory 3GB, and has been working great with Windows 10 Pro (updated from 8.1) since 9 months I know there is outdatings with e.g. display driver, now run with the basic MS one, and Wi-Fi driver etc., but several of the risky devices and also software have been disabled during the Upgrade trials   I hope someone could help me some step ahead on this.