What's new

Solved Windows 10 Upgrade Problems

  • Thread starter Multikill12
  • Start date
  • Views 1,551
Multikill12

Multikill12

Enthusiast
Messages
291
Reaction score
59
Points
95
Sin$
7
I did a fresh install of windows 8.1 (pro x64) on a spare laptop of mine a while back.
I thought of upgrading it to windows 10 (pro x64). When I try to upgrade everything goes smoothly until the screen where there is a big dial in the center. It goes to about 35% and the status of copying files is at around 75% and the system restarts. After it restarts a screen appears which says Restoring your previous windows and I get an error message 0x80070b7 (or something like that) which says something of this sort 'Windows 10 installation failes in SAFE_OS phase PREPARE_FIRST_BOOT'.
If anyone can provide some steps I'll be grateful, I have'nt had any luck googling about it.
TL;DR Want to upgrade to Windows 10 but cannout due to PREPARE_FIRST_BOOT Error
Thanks.
 
Operating System
  1. Windows
R

RR3

PC Tech Enthusiast
Messages
187
Reaction score
47
Points
85
Sin$
0
I did a fresh install of windows 8.1 (pro x64) on a spare laptop of mine a while back.
I thought of upgrading it to windows 10 (pro x64). When I try to upgrade everything goes smoothly until the screen where there is a big dial in the center. It goes to about 35% and the status of copying files is at around 75% and the system restarts. After it restarts a screen appears which says Restoring your previous windows and I get an error message 0x80070b7 (or something like that) which says something of this sort 'Windows 10 installation failes in SAFE_OS phase PREPARE_FIRST_BOOT'.
If anyone can provide some steps I'll be grateful, I have'nt had any luck googling about it.
TL;DR Want to upgrade to Windows 10 but cannout due to PREPARE_FIRST_BOOT Error
Thanks.
Before we try to install Windows 10, please ensure the machine has got the latest updates and we could unplug all the external devices temporatily.

If the issue persists, we could try to upgrade in clean boot environment to have a check.
How to perform a clean boot in Windows
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/929135
 
Multikill12

Multikill12

Enthusiast
Messages
291
Reaction score
59
Points
95
Sin$
7
I installed all the 'Updates available for Windows 8.1 for x64 based systems'
But I did not install all the security updates
Were they important? Because I selected all of them and selected 'Hide updates'
Also I tried the clean boot, did not work either
Edit: Downloading all available updates now
 
Last edited:
Multikill12

Multikill12

Enthusiast
Messages
291
Reaction score
59
Points
95
Sin$
7
5xKMWVx.png

Clean boot, all updates, nothing connected to the laptop
 
R

RR3

PC Tech Enthusiast
Messages
187
Reaction score
47
Points
85
Sin$
0
5xKMWVx.png

Clean boot, all updates, nothing connected to the laptop

The problem seems to be because, your user profile is on a different drive of your system. I suppose that during the update, the system can't find the path of the profile. Surely, a different drive letter is attributed.

The solution for me:

Create temporaly a new user account whose profile is on the same drive as the system.
Restart the update from this account, it should work.

Maybe move your profile is enough. https://support.microsoft.com/fr-fr/kb/979463

If you have changed the registry key that indicates the path of user profiles, return it to its default value.

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE \ SOFTWARE \ Microsoft \ Windows NT \ CurrentVersion \ ProfileList
Change the key "ProfilesDirectory" and specify "% SystemDrive% \ Users".
 
Multikill12

Multikill12

Enthusiast
Messages
291
Reaction score
59
Points
95
Sin$
7
Maybe it's because I'm mounting the windows 10 iso and it has a different drive letter than C: drive?
Would it help if I exract from the iso and the ran the setup.exe from within the C: drive itself?
 
J

JoinTheResistance

Dead to the world, alive for the journey...
Messages
4,669
Reaction score
1,100
Points
1,045
Sin$
7
Maybe it's because I'm mounting the windows 10 iso and it has a different drive letter than C: drive?
Would it help if I exract from the iso and the ran the setup.exe from within the C: drive itself?
You can do the upgrade with a mounted ISO, because it gets unmounted when you reboot the PC. Try making a bootable DVD or USB drive or use the windows 10 upgrade from windows update. If that doesn't work, do a clean install.
 
Multikill12

Multikill12

Enthusiast
Messages
291
Reaction score
59
Points
95
Sin$
7
You can do the upgrade with a mounted ISO, because it gets unmounted when you reboot the PC. Try making a bootable DVD or USB drive or use the windows 10 upgrade from windows update. If that doesn't work, do a clean install.
When I try to upgrade from a bootable usb it says to start the windows normally and then run setup manually.
 
Multikill12

Multikill12

Enthusiast
Messages
291
Reaction score
59
Points
95
Sin$
7
It's possible, but unlikely as you are using a stock ISO from Microsoft.
I'm not using the stock iso
I had downloaded a windows 10 pro from torrent for a fresh install a while back
I think the problem could be that that iso is in en-us already and my 8.1 is en-india
Going to try some things on virtualbox before doing a clean install
 
Cakes

Cakes

お前はもう死んでいる
VIP
Retired
Mythical Veteran Platinum Record End of the Year 2017
Messages
20,705
Reaction score
20,272
Points
3,870
Sin$
-7
I'm not using the stock iso
I had downloaded a windows 10 pro from torrent for a fresh install a while back
I think the problem could be that that iso is in en-us already and my 8.1 is en-india
Going to try some things on virtualbox before doing a clean install
Then you should definitely just use the Media Creation Tool to upgrade your machine. It will download the correct setup files directly from the Microsoft servers and perform the upgrade on your machine. Which will also ensure that you get the free registration for Windows 10 on said machine. It's definitely the safest and most reliable method other than clean installing. I would also not recommend that you clean install. Because if you have not already upgraded to Windows 10 on that machine, you won't get the free activation.
 
Multikill12

Multikill12

Enthusiast
Messages
291
Reaction score
59
Points
95
Sin$
7
Then you should definitely just use the Media Creation Tool to upgrade your machine. It will download the correct setup files directly from the Microsoft servers and perform the upgrade on your machine. Which will also ensure that you get the free registration for Windows 10 on said machine. It's definitely the safest and most reliable method other than clean installing. I would also not recommend that you clean install. Because if you have not already upgraded to Windows 10 on that machine, you won't get the free activation.
Clean install is my last resort.
I'm going to wait till my internet bandwidth resets then I will download it
 
Multikill12

Multikill12

Enthusiast
Messages
291
Reaction score
59
Points
95
Sin$
7
Okay so the thing that was causing the problem was my windows 8.1 was different region and windows 10 iso was of the different region
So i just did a clean install of windows 8.1 as there wasn't any important data and then I upgraded to windows 10 and it worked
Thanks everyone for your inputs
 

Similar threads

Top Bottom
Login
Register