Recovery question.

[micky]

I have successfully downloaded the Free Windows 10 Home Edition from my present Windows 8.1 from Internet.

I have two questions to ask. What happens if my Windows 10 crashes or get corrupted ?

1. Can I recover back the Free downloaded Windows again ?

2. Can I recover my original Windows 8.1 from my Windows 8.1 disk.

My PC had no Operating System. I bought this Genuine copy of Windows 8.1 and successfully installed

in my PC.

If my free Windows 10 got crashed or corrupted by virus attack and so on.

What is the best option I must do. Please kindly advice. Much appreciated.

Thanking you all in advance.

[RichCor]

The suggestion would be to "image" the drive and store that on an external HDD before upgrading.

"Imaging" a drive copies the entire active contents of a drive's partition (or partitions) and stores them as a single compressed (sometimes even encrypted) very large file. This is best done to an external storage medium (not the same physical hard disk drive you are imaging).

So "Imaging" a drive preserves a copy of it, as it is when you create the "Image". You can then choose to 'recover' to this "Image" anytime, but doing so will revert EVERYTHING back to the point at which the Image was created (OS, Apps, Data on the partition... everything go back to the day you created the Image). So you should ALSO have a process for backing up and separately keeping/maintaining an recent version of all your DATA.

Personally, I partition my PC hard drive into a C: and D: and keep all my data on D: and "image" or backup that partition separately. If/when I have an OS issue I simply recover (overwrite) C: partition back to the last working "Image" and I'm back up and running immediately.

...

Windows 10 upgrade will temporarily save your current Windows 7/8/8.1 installation for recovery. If the Windows 10 upgrade/install fails or issues arise then you can 'roll back' to your previous OS installation. After 30 days this temporary storage gets deleted.

Also note: the Windows 10 upgrade process will first authenticate your Windows 7/8/8.1 install as Genuine, then create a 'fingerprint' of your machine's hardware along with what 'Edition' is authorized on Microsoft's Servers. This allows you to re-install Windows 10 from scratch without needing to purchase a new Windows 10 license key for the purpose of re-installing the OS. If Windows 10 is ever re-installed on the PC it can 'query' Microsoft's authentication servers and activate.

...

I mentioned the suggestion would be to "image" the drive first. This is also suggested after you've upgraded to Windows 10, and keep "imaging" the drive so you always have a full copy of the installation to recover to if you ever encounter catastrophic issues like data corruption or hardware failure that aren't simply resolvable. So, keep a full drive Image of your current 8.1 environment, an Image of a successful Windows 10, and then keep two or three (if not more) ONGOING trouble-free Images of your system. One Image is NOT ENOUGH. Another suggestion would be to store the backed up Images on separate media, to reduce chance of media failure leading to recovery loss.

If you keep your created Image of Window 8.1 then you can always overwrite your PCs hard drive back to that Windows 8.1 Image.

The "FREE" Windows 10 Upgrade offer is only available for 1 year from July 29, 2015.

But once a PC has been successfully 'upgraded' then Windows 10 can be installed or re-installed on that PC for the life of that PC.

Windows 10 "Media Creation Tool" can be used to download the correct Windows 10 "Edition" and create either an .iso or bootable install/recovery media.