OT, To say thank you.

[Juiceclone]

been a long time since I started using it (2014) and I see no version number on it. ..Just be sure you're getting it from a 100% reliable ..well known.site.

[J Harp]

I did some more searching, found boot.repair, loaded and ran it. It showed repair successful, I can get to a Microsoft screen, but no idea what to do there, nothing seems to work.

Sent a paste-bin report to boot.repair at gmail dot com, and am awaiting their response. We probably shouldn't continue this OT thread here, but I will report the outcome, success or failure. I was surprised to learn that windows might still be hiding out in this machine, I thought it was gone.

Thanks to all who have responded.

[J Harp]

Windows is gone, boot repair finds no trace of it. Thanks for the interest.

[kendall]

Windows is gone, boot repair finds no trace of it. Thanks for the interest.

ouch.

An alternative is to run two drives, one internal, the other esata, or as I do, all esata. That way you choose what OS to boot into by turning on the drive you want, no worries about boot loaders, and if you need access to a file on the other drive turn it on after booting. Advantage is that even if a drive fails, you will have another OS to use for attempted recovery.
Can do same with most computers using two internal drives, install OS on each drive while that is the only drive connected, disconnect that one, install alternate OS on other drive, then connect both and use F12 to select boot drive when starting.

Edit: multiple internal drives won't always work if you have two installs of the same microsoft operating system, windows update will update the windows install on the first drive regardless of which one you are booted into

One problem, if you plan on going with W10 is that sometimes it will 'lock' the drive it's installed to on shut-down so you can't access it from a different OS, trying to access it from Linux. W7, or XP will make you think the drive has failed.

[J Harp]

Thanks kendall,

This is a laptop, I don't think I want to try installing extra hard drives on it. About all I had on it was pictures which are also stored in other places, so no big deal there.

If my wife should need something which she had on win 7, I think she would be able to download it from online backup to her Win 10 computer. I have emailed the backup provider to ask about that.