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I have an older Veriton unit who's hdd finally died. Lucky me, I have recovery disks I created from the system when I got it. I installed a new 240GB SSD, put disk 1 in boot up, and go through the installation process. The process finishes and tells me to reboot. I reboot and it sticks at the Windows logo screen. I tried a safeboot and it sticks at disk.sys. I tried a command line boot and it sticks at disk.sys. I ran a windows 10 install and did a clean on the drive. I then went through the whole process again with the same results.

This machine was shipped with Windows 8, but included a Windows 7 downgrade. The OS it's loading is Windows 7 which it was running until it died. It's an i5/4GB RAM, 240GB SSD. There is no Windows Product Key sticker on the case, just a Windows 8 Pro sticker. Without a code, I can't load a downloaded version of the OS from MicroSoft.

Has anyone else run into this? It's sucked up way to much of my time troubleshooting & researching and I'm hoping someone else has already found a solution to this problem.

Thanks,
Jeff

Accepted answers

billsey

Yeah, as you discovered Microsoft hasn't actually disabled the free update from W7/W8 to W10, they just no longer *officially* support it, as in you can't call them up to get help with the upgrade. Starting with Windows 8 the CD key is built into the BIOS, so no key needed for a W8/W8.1 or W10 install. Since W7 support ended quite some time ago and W8 support is ending next year you might as well just stick with the W10 that's up and running right now.

All comments

Jeffesmi

Hey All,

Neverminded. I SHMAYBE figured it out. I found a Window 7 Retail DVD in the retail sleeve, and put it into my computer to try some repairs. Even the boxed copy of Windows 7 retail won't boot on this machine. From what I've parsed on other people locking up in safe mode at disk.sys, it's often the video driver. I guess that's the next thing to load??? So to make sure the SSD I bought wasn't bad out of the box, I used my Windows 10 v1903 USB drive and windows 10 loaded without an issue. I was expecting to get the "Invalid Product Key" message, but it was just a test, so who cares? HOWEVER, Windows 10 activated and is running fine. I'm not sure if I let this computer get to the point where it downloaded Windows 10 and then blocked it or if Acer has some licensing sway with their models they distributed w/o a sticker, but in the end, the machine is running and has an upgraded OS.

If I'm right and the Windows 7 recovery disk set just isn't compatible with this units video card or some other internal device, @ACER that is NOT optimal! If companies provide an actual OS disk in the recovery disks, those of us who have the knowledge can slipstream drivers into it, but without that OS disk, we are at the mercy of your factory reset disks. When I can't rely on my restore disks to restore, it's a problem. I've had very positive experiences with Acer in the past, so I'm considering this a one-off, but do better. The companies we put our trust for our technical products need to earn that trust and keep earning that trust.

Jeff

billsey

Yeah, as you discovered Microsoft hasn't actually disabled the free update from W7/W8 to W10, they just no longer *officially* support it, as in you can't call them up to get help with the upgrade. Starting with Windows 8 the CD key is built into the BIOS, so no key needed for a W8/W8.1 or W10 install. Since W7 support ended quite some time ago and W8 support is ending next year you might as well just stick with the W10 that's up and running right now.

Jeffesmi

I had a second machine of the exact same model that was in a closet waiting for something to be done with it, so I went through the whole procedure again with it. Luckily, it was still fully functional, so I even created another set of factory restore disks. The results were exactly the same, so it's pretty clear that the factory restore disks for this machine are just not good. I kind of understand since these models were shipped with Windows 8 as the default OS while we opted for the Win 7 downgrade at the time, but it is still a bit sloppy to release a machine with non-functional restore disks where most people will not notice it as an issue until it's too late. NBD at this time since I now have two upgraded and fully functional machines saved from the brink of the recycling center.

Who would of guessed that Microsoft would save the day. LOL

Thanks,
Jeff

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