Installing Windows on another drive

[tRoN]

Hi Guys n gals

Here's my situation.
Have bought a used PC that has a special video capture card and camera attached for medical photography.
Currently the machine is old but I've managed to upgrade ram and CPU.
It has windows 7 32 bit.
Everything is working fine but the old software has no support service and the company is based in Germany.

Problem is that to upgrade the software I needed to have Windows 8 64 bit or higher installed.

I needed to test the upgraded software first before committing but the machine needs to be operational daily I.e there can't be any downtime.

Also the new software will be installed remotely using teamviewer.

Importantly I don't want to format the existing drive.

So my question is??

Can I add another hard drive with win 10 64 bit installed that can "see" the existing hardware and run a test on the new software "without" interfering with the existing installation and functionality?
Sort of like a dual boot?

Also could the new software access the image database sitting on the existing drive?
In this way if I am happy with the new software then I can just remove the old drive and transfer the database to the new drive.

What's the best way to do this?

 

[Corelli]

It's honestly not that simple. The machine can only run one OS unless you setup VM ware workstation and run the different OS inside. That's if you want it running while you do it. Else unplug the old drive, plug in the new and install via USB. That's the quickest and will give you the least downtime.

Remember windows 10 install specific for the hardware so putting another machine's windows 10 drive will just cause it to reinstall which is much slower than a fresh install via USB. Approx 30 minutes.

 

[Zuner]

It is that simple, plug in a second drive and install win 10 to it. Be careful not to accidentally install on the "old" drive so maybe unplug that while installing on the new drive.

After that plug back the old Drive and set your bios settings to boot off the drivers Windows 10. What's loaded into Windows 10 install all your software and test. With the old hard drive still plugged in you can see your Database and if it works like you said you can just unplug the old drive once you copy the database over.

 

[sajunky]

I suggest to clone existing hard drive to the new one, then disconnect and keep it safe. Then you have two options:

1. Upgrade to Win 10 from ISO file or USB stick, but don't use online upgrade. If anything goes wrong replace with old drive (get production going) and take a time what to do next.

2. On the Win7 installation use program "gatherosstate.exe" from Win10 ISO to generate genuineticket.xml file. Use this file on clean installation of Windows 10. Do it offline and ignore missing drivers. Activate online, then install custom software. Temporary attach old drive and copy database (or do it from network attached resource).

I think #2 will be quicker and more reliable (smaller downtime now and in future).

 

[tRoN]

I suggest to clone existing hard drive to the new one, then disconnect and keep it safe. Then you have two options:

1. Upgrade to Win 10 from ISO file or USB stick, but don't use online upgrade. If anything goes wrong replace with old drive (get production going) and take a time what to do next.

2. On the Win7 installation use program "gatherosstate.exe" from Win10 ISO to generate genuineticket.xml file. Use this file on clean installation of Windows 10. Do it offline and ignore missing drivers. Activate online, then install custom software. Temporary attach old drive and copy database (or do it from network attached resource).

I think #2 will be quicker and more reliable (smaller downtime now and in future).

Thanks for reply @sajunky
2 points.

1. I am requiring to add win 10 64 bit whilst the win 7 is 32 bit. Hence why I didn't want to just upgrade the OS.
2. I don't understand your point #2

 

[sajunky]

Thanks for reply @sajunky
2 points.

1. I am requiring to add win 10 64 bit whilst the win 7 is 32 bit. Hence why I didn't want to just upgrade the OS.
2. I don't understand your point #2

Right. In such case if you follow #1, you would need to upgrade to 32-bit Windows 10 and activate online. In next step a clean installation of 64-bit Win10, as there is no upgrade from 32-bit version to 64-bit version.

Your only option is a clean installation of 64-bit W10, perhaps using option #2. Follow instruction below with additional note that you should use 32-bit version of program "gatherosstate.exe" (from 32-bit Win10 ISO) for generating certificate file.

How to upgrade from W7/8.1 without to go through the upgrade process itself with ease

1. Validate your w7 SP1 (W8.1) online, best using IE.

2. Generate a genuine ticket of your installation by:

2.1 Copy gatherosstate.exe from your downloaded Windows 10 10240 ISO to your installation which should be upgraded.

2.2 Run it on your activated and validated Windows. It'll output GenuineTicket.xml. Save this on a USB thumb drive or something.

3 Then do a fresh install with your suitable w10 ISO, skip to enter key at setup procedure.

4 Once it's installed make sure your internet connection is DISABLED/do not enable the internet connection! Reboot w10.

5. Copy GenuineTicket.xml to C:\programdata\microsoft\windows\clipsvc\genuineticket\ of your w10 installation and reboot again.

6. Connect online, it should activate.
http://forums.mydigitallife.info/th...-through-the-upgrade-process-itself-with-ease

Note: In the latest W10 builds Microsoft allows to use Win7 retail keys for activating Windows 10. The activation method above works both for retail and OEM copies of Windows 7/8.