With that being said, you might want a clean version of the operating system if your hard drive is already overloaded with old software or if you’re replacing a hard drive. If you want to perform a clean install, the process is pretty easy. Read below to get started.

• Back up all of your data. A simple but essential step — make sure to back up everything that you need, since a clean install could overwrite files. Double-check your backups before continuing. In fact, we’d recommend making a few backups of especially important files.

• Upgrade to Windows 10. The clean install option isn’t available until you upgrade. Microsoft rolls out updates in waves, so if you reserved the upgrade, your computer should tell you when it’s ready to install, but you can always click here to download the Windows 10 media creation tool. This allows you to upgrade regardless of whether or not Microsoft has called your number yet.
  
  The upgrade is pretty quick and painless. Your computer will restart a few times during the process.

• Connect to the Internet and let Windows 10 activate itself. This occurs automatically the first time you start your Windows 10 computer. You can check your activation in your settings under “activation,” and you should see the message “Windows is activated.” Since the clean install requires the activation, we strongly recommend double-checking your activation status before proceeding.
  
  
• Use the Windows 10 media creation tool to create bootable media. You can create a DVD or use a USB flash drive; the media creation tool will guide you through the process.

• Restart and boot from the new Windows 10 media. You might need to change BIOS settings in order to boot from the new media.

• Install Windows 10. Select the clean install. When the Windows 10 installation asks you to enter a product key, press “Skip.” You’ve already associated your computer with the new operating system, so you won’t have any issues — provided that you upgraded before you started the clean installation.

If you have any issues activating Windows 10, be patient. Your computer might take a while to reach Microsoft’s activation servers. This process will work for any computer with a valid Windows 10 upgrade, but because the free upgrade period is expired, you won’t be able to follow the steps listed above if you haven’t already reserved your free copy of Windows 10.

Finally, remember to protect your data before upgrading to Windows 10 or performing a clean install. If you run into issues that threaten your data, you can call our data recovery specialists at 1-800-237-4200.

The post Perform a Clean Install of Windows 10 appeared first on Datarecovery.com.

“What file system does Windows 10 use? I’ve heard that Microsoft is upgrading to ReFS, and I’m worried about making a switch.”

This is a good question with an easy answer: as is the case with most other consumer versions of Windows, the Windows 10 file system is NTFS (New Technology File System).

This isn’t much of a surprise. NTFS has been the standard file system for Windows computers for years, and it’s been around since the release of Windows NT 3.1 way back in 1993. It’s currently the most common file system in the world.

Why Doesn’t Windows 10 Use ReFS?

If you’ve been following the development of Microsoft’s next-generation file system, you might wonder why the Windows 10 file system isn’t ReFS by default, and when the company plans to make the switch.

ReFS (Resilient File System) improves on NTFS significantly, as it has features like data scrubbing (an error correction technique that prevents data degradation) and improved structural reliability (through B+ trees for on-disk structures).
ReFS lives up to its name, especially for larger Microsoft servers, and it’s generally considered to be a major improvement in terms of reliability. What’s more, it’s been available for a while; ReFS was launched in 2012 with Windows Server 2012.

So, why isn’t it a fundamental part of Microsoft’s flagship OS?

The short answer is that it isn’t ready for consumers. ReFS is designed to run on Storage Spaces, virtual drives in Windows Server, and while it’s stable for this purpose, it’s not nearly ready to replace NTFS as a standard file system for everyday computing. Microsoft will continue to update ReFS, and we should see it introduced to the masses within the next few years (most likely with a host of new features).

However, there’s no reason to complain — NTFS is perfectly fine for consumer use, and it wouldn’t have been a great idea to upgrade the file system just for the sake of making a change.

What Does the Windows 10 File System Mean for Data Recovery?

To recover data, engineers will often need to use appropriate software tools designed for the file system of the target data.

We develop most of our own utilities in our laboratories, and we can recover data from virtually any file system including NTFS and ReFS. Datarecovery.com has recovered thousands of servers and personal computers, and we have already ran a few simulations to make sure that we’re equipped for Windows 10 data recovery.

Since Windows 10 is a new operating system, however, we do not recommend running any file repair software if you experience issues. If you try to recover data using software designed for Windows 8 or older versions of Windows, you could overwrite files permanently.

Call us at 1-800-237-4200 to set up a free evaluation for Windows 10 data recovery or to speak with one of our data experts.

The post What is the Windows 10 File System? appeared first on Datarecovery.com.

In our experience, the new operating system works pretty well, and we’ve only encountered a few minor bugs (a couple of issues are to be expected with any major software upgrade). We’re loving some of the new features, and it seems to run very quickly.

However, we’ve also received a few cases from clients who overwrote their data during the Windows 10 installation process, and we’re guessing that you’re not reading this article for our review of the software.

We want to be clear: it is certainly possible to install Windows 10 without deleting your data. The process can be risky, however, if you don’t have much experience with operating system upgrades or if you’re running an older computer.

Here’s what you need to know: if you have Windows 7 or Windows 8, the new version should integrate seamlessly without preventing access to any of your old files or settings. In other words, you should be able to upgrade to Windows 10 without losing applications, games, documents, pictures, and anything else you’re keeping on your hard drive.

There are, of course, a few caveats

• If you upgrade from Windows Vista to Windows 10, you will lose data. You will need to perform a “clean” installation in order to perform this upgrade, so you’ll lose everything on your hard drive.

• Be careful when selecting installation settings. The Windows 10 installation process is pretty foolproof, but make sure to read each screen carefully. Don’t perform a clean installation by mistake! We’ll have a full guide to safe Windows 10 installation up within the next few days, and we’ll link it from this article when it’s available.

• You still need to back up your data before upgrading to Windows 10. Microsoft recommends a full backup of everything on your hard drive, and we’ll go a step further by recommending a secondary backup in case your primary backup fails.Make sure to check your backup thoroughly before beginning the install. Open a few files to ensure that the backup processed correctly, or you might suddenly find out that your backup failed — after you’ve already installed Windows 10.

Ready for the good news? Windows 10 installation is quick, simple, and straightforward, so you shouldn’t anticipate any issues if you’ve read through the tips above. If an issue does occur, we can help out.

We’ve already ran a few test scenarios, and we offer Windows 10 data recovery for computer users who accidentally delete data during the install. With ISO 5 cleanroom technology, we can safely handle any case, even if your hard drive fails catastrophically during installation, so give us a call at 1-800-237-4200 if you need any help. We offer free evaluations for all personal computers.

With that being said, we’d rather help you avoid Windows 10 installation issues in the first place. Back up your data! It only takes a few minutes, and it’s certainly worth the effort.

The post Will Installing Windows 10 Delete My Data? appeared first on Datarecovery.com.

Unfortunately, there’s a downside: we receive an influx of cases whenever a new operating system releases.

People can lose data in several ways when installing software. They might accidentally overwrite their files during install, their hard drives could give out due to a sudden change in operating requirements, or software bugs could restrict access to certain folders.

If you’re installing Windows 10 today, we strongly encourage you to take steps to protect your data. Otherwise, you might end up calling us — and as much as we’d love to have your business, we’d rather spend our time celebrating the return of the Start Menu.

Here’s what you need to know:

• You Have Plenty of Time to Install. If you reserved Windows 10 prior to July 29th, you have one year to install it before your free upgrade expires. Don’t rush through the download or installation.

• Back Up Important Files — But Don’t Stop There. We’ve seen some forum posts from people who’ve installed Windows 10 after backing up their data, only to suddenly realize that key files weren’t included in the backup. We recommend doing a complete backup of your hard drive or solid-state drive before you start the Windows 10 installation process. Microsoft makes the same recommendation.If you’ve got irreplaceable files, we’ll go a step further and recommend two backups. The easiest way to do this is to make one complete physical copy of your drive (for instance, to an external hard drive) and one cloud-based backup of your most important files. Redundancy is your friend!

• Check the Backups. We just received a case where the client did a complete backup before a Mac OS X reinstall, only to realize that his backup hard drive was damaged (he’d unplugged it from the computer without following a safe ejection process).Fortunately, it was an easy case, but he could have avoided some stress by double-checking his backup on another computer before he started the operating system installation.After you make your backups, make sure that you can open and read a few of your most important files. Don’t skip this step.

• Make Sure You Read Through All of the Options During Install. If you don’t intend to do a clean install, make sure you don’t accidentally select that option. Read through every screen.This is an obvious tip, we know, but it bears repeating after reading through a few of the tech support threads we’ve seen today.

• If You Lose Important Data, Turn Your Drive Off. If you’ve neglected some of the tips listed above and you lose something important, immediately turn your computer off.If you’re lucky, you haven’t overwritten too much data, but the longer you run your hard drive, the more you overwrite.

At this time, we wouldn’t recommend any data recovery software for Windows 10 since we haven’t had experience with the OS.  We think that the best option is a professional data recovery service, but we’re a little biased.

If you do decide to run software, make sure that it’s not installed to the target drive (i.e. the drive that had the important data) and be aware that your software might run into some weird issues. If the missing files are really, really important, get it to a professional.

We’ll update this page if we run into any issues with our Windows 10 upgrade, but we’re not expecting anything — there’s currently no indication that the operating system has severe installation issues, and we’re excited to give it a shot.

In the meantime, feel free to email support @ datarecovery.com if you ran into any issues, and we’ll do our best to help out.

The post Protect Your Data When Upgrading to Windows 10 appeared first on Datarecovery.com.