How to upgrade from Windows 7 computer with BSOD

[DieterDorin]

I have an HP HDX 18 laptop with Windows 7 installed. I does not start properly. I get a Blue Screen of Death. I tried various restore points to no avail. Hardware tests fine. Then Windows 10 upgrade comes along, so I decide to upgrade. I download the installation media to a USB flash drive, change the boot options in my BIOS to enable it to boot from the USB drive and try setup for WIndows 10. I choose the upgrade option and it simply tells me to reboot from my normal OS and run setup from the the USB drive. That is impossible for me.
It appears that there is no way to upgrade without a running Windows 7 OS to start with. Is there any way around this?

 

[Trouble]

Is there any way around this?

Nope. Not even in Safe Mode (if that is even an option to you with the existing BSOD). An upgrade can only be performed from within a fully functional normal boot (or clean boot) of Operating System you are attempting to upgrade from.

 

[DieterDorin]

Yes I do get safe mode boot options, but they don't do any better. What about installing with the custom option and using a product key. Not sure I can figure out my product key for Window 7, since it was free upgrade from Vista due to when I bought the computer. Does the product key have to be a Windows 10 key?

 

[Trouble]

I'm not sure what an upgrade to Windows 7 from Vista might have produced in the way of a product key.
You can always use something like License Crawler or one of the many product key finders to determine what the product key might be.
I would not consider going forward without a backup of all my critical data including a disk image just to be on the safe side.
I think, I would probably experiment with a different hard disk. One that I didn't have anything of value on. I'd remove the BSOD'ing hard drive and set it aside and use a different one to experiment with to see if the product key that you find might work to support a custom clean install.
When you did the initial upgrade from Vista to Windows 7.... didn't you get a product key with the purchase of the upgrade media?

 

[Vince Massi]

Dieter, since your laptop was designed for Vista, I advise you not to upgrade to 10.

Now, how often do you get the BSOD? Does it happen with certain programs or at random?

If you can get ANY legal Windows DVD into the optical drive, reboot and it will take you into a help menu.

 

[Saltgrass]

You may want to spend some time solving the BSOD situation. If you can figure that out it would allow the upgrade if you really want to take that system to Windows 10.

For now, disconnect everything you can on the system and disable any devices not necessary for boot, possibly in the bios settings. Things like Bluetooth in the past have caused driver problems during boot. If you want to go beyond this step, Trouble can probably tell you were you need to go to get help with a BSOD situation in Windows 7.