# Win7 upgraded to Win10, now the Hard Drive failed!



## petef56 (Mar 27, 2006)

Dell Inspiron 5423 Laptop originally had Win7 (factory setup) and last year took the option to upgrade to Win10. All that was successful, but now the hard drive crashed and I have no recovery media. The only product key I have is the original key from the Win7 sticker on bottom of the laptop.

First question:

If I install a new HD, will the old Win7 key work with the site below that allows me to download the Win10 installation media ISO? The site below states that I need a "Win10 License" and I assume that means I need the key that goes with this computer.

Download Windows 10
Create Windows 10 installation media
https://www.microsoft.com/en-ca/software-download/windows10

Second question:
If I was successful at installing Win10, it looks like some, but not all of the important Win10 drivers are available for DL from Dell (see link below). However, at least 1 important driver (Ethernet driver) is not available for Win10, but if I change the OS at link below to Win7 there is one for Win7. Would that work with Win10?

http://www.dell.com/support/home/us.../servicetag/5885nt1/drivers/advanced?os=wt64a

This is such a nightmare because I don't want to wind up spending time & money on a new HD and installing Win10 only to find that certain things like the Ethernet connection will not work due to lack of driver support for Win10 by Dell.

I'm also wondering what are other people's experiences with computers that were upgraded from Win7 to Win10 via the free offer by Microsoft, and since then their hard drive failed and they never created any recovery media? I imagine this is a common problem these days.

--pete--


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

> Dell Inspiron 5423 Laptop originally had Win7


I'm guessing you actually have a *Dell Inspiron 14z 5423* 14" laptop which appears to have these primary devices:
Intel HD graphics
IDT high definition audio
Intel wireless
Qualcomm Atheros ethernet


> last year took the option to upgrade to Win10


Since that laptop was previously upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10, you should be able to do a re-install of Windows 10 in the new hard drive.
Microsoft should detect it as being the same laptop and should automatically activate the Windows 10 re-install.


> If I was successful at installing Win10, it looks like some, but not all of the important Win10 drivers are available


From what I can tell, the Windows 10 re-install should install the necessary drivers.

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## petef56 (Mar 27, 2006)

flavallee said:


> I'm guessing you actually have a *Dell Inspiron 14z 5423* 14" laptop which appears to have these primary devices:
> Intel HD graphics
> IDT high definition audio
> Intel wireless
> ...


*Yes, to your first question and the Service Tag # is 5885NT1*

*Your reply sounds encouraging. *
*Thank you!*

*I have one other complication. Besides the 500GB Seagate hard drive (Drive 0) that failed, There is a 32GB mSATA SSD installed (Drive 1) that I believe is configured to be the hibernation drive. This is the first time I'm seeing this kind of drive configuration. Hopefully it won't interfere with the reinstall of Win10. *

*--pete--*


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

My apology for not noticing your webpage link with the service tag number.
I guess I need more coffee. 

I've never owned or worked on a laptop which has both a SATA drive and a solid state drive.
Someone else who has will need to address that question.

I definitely wouldn't install Windows 10 in the solid state drive.
It'll run out of free space real quick. 

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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

That laptop appears to have been purchased in July 2012, so it's over 4-1/2 years old.
Depending on how much use and abuse it's been through, its SATA hard drive could fail within that time.

The Media Creation Tool should allow you to download and save Windows 10 "Creators Update" version 1703 build 15063.
I recently created a bootable DVD with its ISO file and did a clean install in my Dell OptiPlex 7010 desktop.

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## petef56 (Mar 27, 2006)

Ok, thanks for all the good advise. I'll let you know how it goes or if I learn anything new. --pete--


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

You're welcome.
Keep us posted.

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## petef56 (Mar 27, 2006)

Everything went well and I was quite impressed how seamless the process was of downloading the Media Creation tool, running it to create the Win10 installation DVD and installing Windows 10. 

To my surprise, Windows 10 installed all the needed drivers and Device Manager showed that all devices were working properly. So there was no need to download anything from Dell. What a time saver! 

During installation, as for entering the Win10 key, I selected the option... "I don't have a product key", and it proceeded to install Win10 and automatically activated it. That was impressive and another big time saver. 

So I give a big THUMBS UP to Microsoft and their new process of re-installing Windows 10 via the Media Creation tool to a computer that had a new hard drive installed. 

Frank, thanks again for all your advise!

--pete--


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## flavallee (May 12, 2002)

I'm glad you had the computer knowledge to complete the entire process, and I'm glad the entire process went well.   

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