Considering putting win 10 TP on my old Dell

[GreyFox7]

Win 10 probably wont overwrite the Dell recovery partition...
When I looked at my dad's Dell he had what appeared to be 3 recovery partitions. One looked to be a recovery bootstrap 300MB, one looked like it was a vanilla Windows Recovery Partition a few GB and the third was Dell specific 10GB. IDK how all that plays together, it could be the 3rd one was just the Dell Backup.
Worst comes to worst you can request Recovery Media with your service tag from Dell but it would be quicker to go ahead and make the image and System Recovery Disk.

 

[Moonsurface]

Yep I went on the Dell site for the first time ever today and looked at the stuff available with my service tag. To be honest though the fan blows a hell of a lot with this laptop it has been pretty good- though really it hasn't been used the last two years since I got my desktop PC, before that though it was used heavily every day as if it were a desktop with all manner of peripherals hanging off it.

For some reason the only thing that doesn't work is the eject button for the CD drive... I have to manually right click onthe drive letter to eject discs... apart from that it's fine.

 

[GreyFox7]

There are a few ways forward but installing on the same partition is suboptimal IMO, although I haven't done it with Win 10 so i cant say what it would do. Its probably change drastically since I tried it last which a long time ago.

See the Win 10 forum here for two options (pinned articles) related to Surface 3 which only require minor translation/substitution to your scenario.
http://www.surfaceforums.net/forums/windows-10-forum.62/

Or one of the Many online guides... substituting 10 for 8
Same Partition with VHD
http://www.howtogeek.com/75286/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-and-8-without-re-partitioning-using-vhd/
Separate Partitions
http://lifehacker.com/5840387/how-to-dual-boot-windows-7-and-windows-8-side-by-side

 

[Moonsurface]

Too late it's installed on the main C: partition. When it rebooted it then asked me if I wanted to start win technical preview or win 7. I'm not entirely sure what it would do if I chose win 7 - presumably use the recovery partition - It did say it would create a Windows.old folder with the old windows files in.
Currently it's booting the new Windows and is showing a "Getting ready" sign. Finger's crossed

 

[Moonsurface]

Done and running fine Copied the settings over from my surface.

 

[GreyFox7]

So how is the performance?
Can you indicate the CPU model number from System properties or Task Manager? 2xxx or 4xx???

 

[Moonsurface]

It's a M520 so a first gen i5, early 2010 model Dell studio 1558. It is comparatively very slow compared to the Surface Pro 3 but I do think that win 10 feels more responsive on it, it's so far seeming less frustrating than win 7, however this is a fresh install of course!!

I like win 10 so far, fresh bright and breezy and probably just what my lappy needed to stop me junking it.

 

[GreyFox7]

It's a M520 so a first gen i5, early 2010 model Dell studio 1558. It is comparatively very slow compared to the Surface Pro 3 but I do think that win 10 feels more responsive on it, it's so far seeming less frustrating than win 7, however this is a fresh install of course!!

I like win 10 so far, fresh bright and breezy and probably just what my lappy needed to stop me junking it.

If you put an SSD in there it should give it some Zip.
I've been running W8.1 on an old MBA with a Core 2 Duo L9600 CPU 4GB ram and it's surprisingly quick. The M520 is a faster CPU although has slower graphics than the discrete G320m graphics in the old MBA but the SSD disk is twice+ as fast as the Seagate Momentus in the Dell. I think the SSD makes a lot of difference in the way its running. Although it would probably still be challenged running Lightroom due to the graphics.

 

[Moonsurface]

I might think about that, I'd all but given up on this laptop - it's very big and heavy and I don't really need it now, I use my desktop at home and my surface away from home, so I've no need for it really. I might treat it to a new battery though as this one is totally dead and doesn't last more than 20 mins without being plugged in.

 

[Moonsurface]

Oh dear, something weird's happened. I let Win10 do some updates lastnight as it was asking and then left it to restart etc as necessary. This morning I went and looked at it and it was stuck on a boot screen saying:

No operating system...



Oh dear!! Not sure how that happened as I'm sure I had restarted a few times before the updates OK.

Might have to get the disc out and reinstall it again.

 

[GreyFox7]

Which OS did it try to boot 7 or 10?
How would 7 know its files are now in windows.old... and if 7 booted and repaired its boot files... it would likely step on 10 which it knows nothing about.

I don't remember anymore but I did this years ago and there's a reason why I always use separate Partitions or a VHD (which is just another flavor of a separate partition). IMO MS should either disallow this or actually make it work but as it is the scenario is a nightmare. If it was going to work the logical thing would be to change the Installation directory of the new OS since all the registry and links could be variables but renaming the directory of the Old OS leaves all the links and Registry entries broken and pointing to the wrong place. Then, what of Program Files etc...

The same partition scenario is only a half baked solution and the MS Chef never finished it.

When you get that disk out to reinstall... choose a new partition or VHD.

 

[Moonsurface]

I didn't get a choice of OS so perhaps something has changed there now, though I only saw that choice the very first time before I ever even got into win 10 to set it up. The Dell recovery partition is presumably still present however. I might however just start again,wipe the main C partition somehow I don't need win.old if the recovery partition is still intact - though how I'd actually use the recovery partition I'm not entirely sure!

It's not a big deal if I have to start from scratch with this laptop as I would have just wiped it and sold it or just leave it festering somewhere until it got too obsolete for anything anyway.

Question is how do I add a new partition if I can't boot the OS..?? Can I do it from BIOS somehow?