I had windows 8.1 installed on my computer but wanted windows media center to integrate with my Xbox and TV. I decided to install win 10 tpv thinking it would come installed with WMC. Not wanting to get rid of win 8.1 because of all the files and programs I had accumulated over the years, I bought an external hard drive to install windows 10. I didn't totally backup my "c" drive cause I would be downloading and installing win 10 on my external drive...Well after downloading win 10 to my "f" drive I clicked the setup file and let the good times roll. Now I had windows 8.1 and windows 10 to play with..so I thought. After rebooting, I noticed the desktop had a different image than before, and none of my programs were on it. It was then that I began feeling sick, real sick. Yes, you guessed it, Windows 10 did not install on my "f" drive, but instead over wrote my "c" drive with windows 10. Nearly everything was gone! I thought "what a complete dumbass". I didn't know what to do. I tried to roll back to win. 8, tried to figure out a way to restore back to my old program, I even tried a recovery program but that didn't work either. I feel so stupid, but never thought this would happen. Anyone got any thoughts how I can recover my old "c" drive? I did notice there are two recovery partitions on the "c" drive, could one be from my old files? I had files and programs there that can't be replaced. Any ideas would be greatly appreciated. As you can see I know enough about programing computers to be dangerous. please help me figure this out... dumbass
If your C drive was set to be the boot drive and you did not direct the installation to a different drive... you are basically SOL. Did you have any backup images made of the Win8.1 installation prior to doing this?
If you boot into the recovery environment there should be an option to restore to your previous OS. From an admin command prompt, type: Code: reagentc /boottore shutdown -r -f -t 0 That should boot into Recovery... Good luck!
1. Capture Windows 8.1 image from C:\Windows.old folder to a partition other than C:. E: for example. Code: DISM /Capture-Image /ImageFile:E:\WIN81.wim /CaptureDir:C:\Windows.old\ /Name:WIN81 2. Boot to WinPE 3. Find the Drive letter which holds WIN81.wim. D: for example 4. Find the Drive letter which holds Windows.old. F: for example 5. Quick format F: with the command, and answer y format f: /q 6. Code: DISM /Apply-Image /ImageFile:D:\WIN81.wim /Index:1 /ApplyDir:F:\ 7. Create boot item with the command bcdboot F:\Windows /s C: 8. Reboot
xbox video does what WMC used to do also setup windows media player to stream to your xbox 360 / one via the play to option.
Thanks, Win 10 has that option but I don"t know if I was trying with Administrator permission. I'll try that as well and let you know.
when I tried to network my old win 8 computer the xbox did not see the computer. I haven't tried anything now till I can either fix this problem or try again. thanks, I will let you know what I get. frankly after this _uck up I am afraid to do any coding myself. I would be afraid it might blow up on me! Any one out there interested in networking our computers to look at my computer? I think that would be the best solution.
Ok, I found a backup from last year, as well as a restore disk, and a Norton backup from 2012. Most of the files on the 2014 disk seem to be there(pictures, documents, programs etc.). You guys sent me some dos. code to fix my problem but I didn't grow up on dos. so it might as well been in Chinese. I am interested in restoring my files that were over written when I installed win 10, but last years backup would be ok. Xinso asked me to find a file named WIN81.win, and a file WIN81 in my windows old folder but the computer didn't find either one of them. So, getting back to my problem, I have win 10 now on my "C" drive and have added some programs that I need (some are incompatable). I now need to either install a clean bootable windows pro on my external "E" hd (I have the iso), or restore the backed up windows 8.1 (it had some issues) on to the "E" external drive. Either way I would like to have a choice at start up to boot to either or. This forum has been very helpful so far and I hate to bother this forum so much for an issue that was totally my fault. Could someone please walk me thru what needs to be done with the least amount of code possible? Or maybe even connect remotely to my computer to help allow me to do this? The biggest thing is I now know that I still have my files backed up. Please post or message me and let me know if you can help me, I simply can't afford to take this pc to a shop. jay
So that "DOS Code" they sent you were a couple commands that would possibly allow you to restore your system, but they could perhaps not even be needed. Before doing anything, you should really confirm that you have a Windows.Old folder, everything from your previous installation of Windows will be located there, including your user profile.
That stuff, while possibly useful, is quite outdated too, and the OP has indicated they don't want to do command line work If Windows 10 created a Windows.Old folder, or made a backup wim file, then its Settings app may possibly provide an option to uninstall 10 and revert the machine to the way it found it before its installation. Open Settings, click on Updates and Security, then look at the Recovery section, see if there is an option in there that may help.
It's still actual and, obviously, perfectly working. Then, as always happens, the same result can be get in many different ways. If the command line is not liked, the same delete/move operations can be easly accomplished graphically using a live linux distro and its filemanager or with a winPE environment, say hirens's bootcd.
There is no Windows.Old file on my computer. With me now having most of the backed up files I need wouldn't installing a fresh win 8 pro on my external drive or separate partition be the best way to go? I would be fine with that...
I'm not really concerned about the data as I found a backup disk from last year when my computer first started giving me problems. Today I formatted my external drive 'f' and tried to install a win 8 pro iso on that drive. I tried once tonight but it tried to install on my 'c' drive (again). I have already changed my bios to boot to my usb drive but I still need to get the program installed there. I will do some more research and try again tomorrow Thank you
ok, no one is going to tell him that is no posible to install any windows to external drive??? saludos
I think Windows 8.1 Enterprise can be installed to an external drive. I have 5 hard drives in my pc, whenever I install Windows I always disconnect every drive except the one I am installing to. This eliminates formatting and installing to the wrong drive.