I screwed up and ordered Windows 7 Pro before I realized I couldn't do an upgrade from Vista Home Premium. I really don't want to resintall all my programs. So I'm thinking about installing a new drive, and doing a dual boot setup with Windows 7 on the new "D" drive. Question is, can I do this with an upgrade version of Windows 7, or do I need the full version?
View 8 RepliesI am trying to perform a clean/custom install of Windows 7 Professional 32-bit on my VAIO SZ-650N. I have the upgrade disc and though its primary purpose is to upgrade from Vista to Windows 7, it is confirmed to work with clean installs as well. Since I want to perform a clean install, I must boot the installation from the disc and not within the OS. The problem is that when I insert the disc into the drive and start up the computer, it'll pause for a moment longer than usual, as if it detects that the CD is there, like I can hear the disc spinning in the drive, and this little gray underscore will blink on the screen, but it will never give me the "Press any key to boot from CD" message and it'll eventually just load up my OS.The disc is in perfect condition and I can view its contents and run it from within the operating system...I just can't boot from it. Even the directions for clean/custom installs that come with this disc say that it must be done from the disc, not when the OS is loaded. The problem can't possibly be my BIOS startup order, because first of all the disc drive is selected to load first thing and when I insert other bootable CD's such as my beta copy of Windows 7, I can boot from it fine.
Edit: It will not let me do a custom install from within the OS regardless because it is unable to detect any drives/partitions to install Windows 7 onto. And the "advanced" option isn't there...I'm guessing because it's impossible to wipe the drive clean when the OS is already loaded.
I would like to install 7022 onto my hard drive. Problem is i am unsure how to proceed because on another internal hard drive i have ubuntu installed. Now both OS are installed to different hard drives yet ubuntu has its boot manager installed and this gives me the option of booting either 7 or linux.
Im just looking for some guidance as i do not want to screw over the boot manager performing an upgrade.
I have also taken a full TI image of the computer just incase.
I'm running XP pro and would like to know if I can use a Win 7 pro upgrade DVD to make a dual boot system.
I would not be keeping it that way for long but I'm not happy going completely over to Win 7 in one go
I have a netbook running on N280 Atom with 2 GB of Ram and 2 partitioned drives at 72 GB each.
I have XP home edition installed on the C: drive and want to install Win 7 on the D: drive in order to dual boot.
The problem is that I have a Win 7 professional "upgrade" disk.
My question is: If I already have XP installed on the C: drive, will I have a problem (or is there any cons) with attempting to install Win 7 to the blank D: drive being that it's just an "upgrade" disk as opposed to a full OS disk?
Should I even try to do this?
The reason I'm even thinking of attempting this is because I get a super discount on the upgrade being that I am an adult atending a university. You cannot beat the student discount of $29.99 for Win 7 professional.
I don't want to shell out $200 for the full disk unless I absolutely have to...
Well i am currently running Vista Home Premium sp2 and Windows 7 Ultimate (build 7100) in a dual boot config for about 2-3months and loving it. I was wondering if i could upgrade my Windows 7 install to RTM without affecting my Vista install? Do you get a choice which OS you want to upgrade or does it go by what OS you load the upgrade disc from?
View 5 Replies View RelatedMy boot drive is a 120Gb Samsung spinpoint, previously one whole partition containing XP. This XP wasnt a clean install, it was an upgrade to Windows 98 I think, and this may be the problem. I have a number of other hard disks, 1 PATA and 2 SATA, which I am using for video editing stuff.
I downloaded GParted, shrunk the XP partition to 76Gb and created a new 35Gb partition for Windows 7. A bit small, but I figured once everything was tested out, I could grow out the Windows 7 partition.
This was successful, and I inserted the Windows 7 disk...selected custom install, and installed to my newly created partition.
Windows 7 did its reboots and I filled in the usual bunff to create basic accounts, etc.
Then I rebooted, and was a bit surprised I did not get the dual-boot menu, it went straight into Windows 7. Using F5 and F8 did not provide any further options, specifically the 'Previous version of Windows' one.
Going into Windows 7 Disk manager, i could see the partition was still there. I read other posts of what Windows 7 does (belately) and yes, it had 'hidden' the XP partition. I gave it a drive letter (D, but Windows 7 saw it as an empty disk!
I downloaded EasyBCD, and it showed only one entry in the bootloader. I tried to add a new entry, using type:"Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3", but the Drive was greyed out; if I selected "Vista/Longhorn" I could then change the drive to D: and then change type back to XP (odd). I then clicked 'Add Entry', but it came back with an error message "EasyBCD could not locate a copy of NTLDR on your hard drive. Please download a copy of NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from Htpp://(blah blah) and copy them to the drive D: in order for your newly-created entry to work.".
Does this mean my XP partition is truly trashed? Is there a way to get back my XP partition?
I am thinking of maybe inserting the XP disk and repairing, maybe it will detect XP and fix it, but if it will blow away both my installations, I might not bother.
Last resort is to use File Scavenger on the dead partition, but when I checked it out in GParted again just now, it said that 3Gb out of the 76Gb had data, could it be that Windows 7 has just not recognised my original XP partition as an XP partition, thought it was its configuration partition, and just overwrote stuff?
I have a dual boot scenario currently on an Intel 80GB SSD, with one partition as XP Pro, and the other is Windows 7, split 20GB(XP)/50GB(7).
The XP partition needs to be upgraded to Windows 7 for my wife's work remote access, and it will also include Office 2010 Pro.
Will I run into any issues dual booting into the existing Windows 7 partition after the upgrade, or should I just reinstall our personal Windows 7 OS after the upgrade is installed?
I have other hard drives to use as well if space becomes an issue, but I'd like to keep the existing Windows 7 install without starting from scratch.
I currently have Vista Ultimate x64 and Windows 7 RC1 x64 running in a dual boot setup. Each OS is installed on a separate disk drive. If I preorder Windows 7 Professional upgrade ($99) will I be able to do a clean install on a partition of my choice or will it force me to clean install over my existing Vista Ultimate partition ?? I understand that I cant do an upgrade in place from Vista Ultimate to Windows 7 Professional. My question is will the preorder Windows 7 upgrade force to me "kill" my Vista Ultimate partition ?
View 1 Replies View RelatedIs there any way to use a windows 7 Ultimate Upgrade disc as a installation disc? Or would I have to go out and get another Windows installation disc and then use the upgrade disc?
View 6 Replies View RelatedSo I have an bit of an odd and I think unique problem (as many searches came up with no solutions). Simply put, my boot manager is missing, but only when my windows install disc is not in the disc drive. It started several months ago and I just left it be, let the disc it int he disc drive and it was not that big of a deal. But just did a clean install couple days ago I re-installed windows 7 ultimate 64-bit on my computer (using an upgrade disc if that makes a difference).I formatted the drive with what I guess is a quick format (the option the install disc gives you). I have tried doing a repair with the install disc but no problems are found every time I try.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI have a PC with XP Home and wish to upgrade it to Win 7-64. I purchased the Win 7 upgrade version. Will ditch XP when happy with getting programs installed in Win 7.I also have a new drive that I wish to do the install of Win 7.My plan is to hookup new drive, place Win 7 DVD in drive and run the install in Custom mode. This should install Win 7 on new drive and preserve Win XP on the old drive.To register Win 7, I have the serial info from the Win XP system and will insert when asked. I'm concerned about whether this method to register will work correctly as I was told that Win 7 must find a windows.old file on the installation drive. Will it work OK?
View 7 Replies View Relatedi have a new work laptop with xp sp3 on it. I want to install w7 64 bit as a dual boot, but only have 1 physical drive. i cannot remove my current installation as it is pre-build from work, but can partition the drive etc. However on trying to install w7 64 bit I get a message saying cannot install windows 7 on efi drive with mbr, not gpt. Can I do what I want without screwing up my xp installation?
View 5 Replies View Relatedmy question is "does my laptop have a dual-layer dvd burner?"my laptop specifications are on this link:[URL]...
View 1 Replies View Relateddual booting windows 7 home premium x64 with linux fedora 14 on dual independantly dedicated drives. i am a college student with moderate computer (windows) knowledge but am doing software development and would like to play around with some linux for a class. i have no prior experience with linux and have minimal knowledge of operation. i am currently running windows 7 and would like to keep it as my primary os. i do not wish to share media files across drives or os's, windows does that just fine as is and i dont want to get into a third drive. my current drive is a 1tb wd black caviar hdd. it is also currently 2/3rds full and the desktop is about 6 months old so i would rather not partition the drive for a dual boot. i would think that there are some other advantages for the os's operating independantly off their own drives other than if one hdd dies i should still have the other with its os still ok. i have read some topics about RAID configs with dual boot setups with dual drives like this but am not very familiar with RAID. is there a RAID config that would be beneficial in this situation? i currently do not have a RAID card. my tower internals are not very accessible and i dont like the idea of disconnecting drives depending on which os i want to operate.
View 5 Replies View RelatedAs currently configured, XP is on drive C:, Win 7 was added to drive E:, and the system is currently run as a dual boot. Attempting to boot without the XP drive present will yield a "NTLDR is missing" error very early in the boot process.
I have already tried the following:
(1) I moved the hidden Windows Boot Manager files (bootmgr as well as the associated Boot folder) from the XP drive root to the Win 7 drive root.
(2) After physically removing the XP drive, I rebooted to the Win 7 installation DVD, and used the "Repair Your Computer" option to pull up the "Recovery Tools". Then, using the command prompt utility, ...
(3) I attempted to write a new boot sector to the Windows 7 disk using the command: Bootrec /fixboot, - that yields an error though. The Bootrec /fixmbr claimed success, but ultimately did not make Win 7 drive bootable.
I had to reconnect drive C: just to boot into Win 7 again to write this. I do have files backed up, but to format and reinstall files would take many hours beyond just the time to transfer 400 GB of data, since I have dozens of purchased applications that need to be freshly reinstalled and validated as well. Basically I want my E: drive now to be my boot drive while the C: drive is reformatted and used for general storage.
Any idea how to make my Win 7 drive bootable? Do I need a partition program that is more adept at creating a viable boot sector, or is that even the problem?
I am from the UK I received my order confirmation that the Windows 7 upgrade disc was on its way to me by DHL but on tracking it it has gone to South Africa and according to DHL my name and address was not on the package, ms have cocked it up.
Fine the problem is I can find no way of contacting ms to get another disc, no phone numbers no emails nothing!
Even the website support needs a product number which obviously I dont have, my supplying dealer cant help as the upgrage comes from ms.
It seems that ms have not thought that anything could go wrong with a delivery, let alone in the post when the UK is having post strikes.
I'm moving from Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Pro and originally thought about a dual boot. But I've convinced myself that I won't use Vista once I get everything reinstalled in Windows 7, and now wish to install Windows 7 Pro on a new drive. I'll take my Vista drive out, install the new drive and load Windows 7, and then, put the Vista drive back in as a secondary so that I'll have easy access to all my data as I complete the changeover. I can then use the Vista drive as a backup, etc.
I've ordered the Windows 7 Pro upgrade disc. Question is, do I need to reinstall Vista on the new drive before I put in the upgrade disc? Or can I just put in the new drive, boot Windows 7 from the install disc, and then insert the Vista disc if it asks for the qualifying media (or does Windows 7 even ask for qualifying media?
I want to upgrade my XP to Windows 7 but I found out that the upgrade versions need the XP discs for verification. Unfortunately my disc is missing so will I not be able to upgrade from XP?
If not, can I buy the full retail version and be able to upgrade without my XP disc?
I have a windows 7 home premium x64 Toshiba upgrade disc laying around and has not been used as i have a copy of windows 7 ultimate x64 installed on my laptop instead. so i was wondering if there was anyway i could install this on a another computer and do a full install and if it is possible how do i go about doing it?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have windows 7 64 bit (upgraded).I installed it but how do i factory restore it.on my vista i used a option on task bar .but with this i'm lost.
View 8 Replies View RelatedI bought the Upgrade from Vista disc. (bummer) because it said I could clean install from XP. nope.
View 1 Replies View Relatedi just got the upgrade disc from the sony center.Did everything want the manual wanted me to do,and everythign went fine so far.But after i put in the Vaio Supplement dvd the 2nd time, my computer froze.So i restarted it and tried it again, but now it wont open again.My question now, should i recover my system again to vista and try to upgrade it again OR is the supplement disc not that important. Because the windows 7 runs just fine now. (so far that i can tell)
View 1 Replies View RelatedJust built my new computer but realized that I can't use the same Windows 7 disc/cd-key that's on my old computer because it's only one per computer when I thought it was 3. Looking at the prices on the Windows 7, it costs $119 for upgrade and $200 for full retail. From what I have read, when installing using the upgrade disc, it would detect my previous Windows version and if it's older than XP, or if there's no Windows installed, it would not activate Windows as it isn't a proper license and I would need the full retail one. Is this correct?
View 8 Replies View RelatedBought an Windows 7 home premium upgrade disc for my Vista home premium pc, duly went and downloaded the upgrade advisor program before opening the package and it told me that my computer was a-ok to run windows 7 and upgrade, so I opened the package and put the dvd in my laptop's drive.It makes a whirring noise, then sticks, if I click on the drive it tells me to insert a disc and ejects the windows 7 dvd.This is the first and only DVD that has ever behaved like this, all others work.
View 5 Replies View RelatedI bought a new hard drive and win 7 upgrade disc (I do own a copy of win 98 and win xp upgrade so thats all legal) I put the win 7 upgrade disc in and it started to install it gets right to the bit where you need to put your product key in and then its says INVALID LICENCE KEY I ve tried and tried but thats all it will say (and yes I did un check the activate windows on line)
So I then tried installing my xp upgrade disc after it scans the hard drive it says please put your copy of win 98 in the disc drive to see if you are eligible for the upgrade (not exact words but you get the drift) after it checks it then it says put you xp disc back in the drive. but it wont install it just keeps going round in a loop doing the same things as above and wanting to re formate the drive all the time and asking for the win 98 disc.
I am now thinking of having to install win 98 then xp upgrade then win 7 (I want to use the 64 bit disc too) seems a bit long winded but I don't know what else to do. Its a bit of a pain because win 98 disc won't recognise my cd drive I assume because its SATA, anyway I have an old ATA/IDE cd drive which I ve just rigged up and win 98 is now formating the drive but its gona take ages.
If you registered forr the Windows 7 Upgrade option disk and your manufacturer is supposed to send you a voucher that you can redeem online to microsoft to get them to ship you a disc, can you download the disk as an option? because I have no cd drive.
View 1 Replies View Relatedok, I need to clarify. I have an old Dell computer with a really shoddy version of Windows Vista...and of course no 'real' disk. I only have the 'reinstallation' dvd froom Dell. I would like to get the Windows 7 64bit upgrade and install (yes, will support). Can I do that with only the 'reinstallation' dvd? Or am I hosed and have to get the full install Win 7
View 3 Replies View RelatedI am trying to upgrade from Vista starter to win7pro 32 bit. My Vista is French and the upgrade will put win 7 on in English but the disc drive which works for everything else cannot see the disc
View 2 Replies View RelatedI bought two dell laptops with a free Windows 7 upgrade available. I have upgrade the first machine, but had to pay for a disc to be delivered and it took 2-3 weeks. Can I use the upgrade disc from the first machine to upgrade the second machine, or will I have licensing problems?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI currently have vista 32 bit installed and was thinking of upgrading to windows 7 64 bit. From what I've read, it is possible to do this using the upgrade disc, but not with the in place upgrade. Wondering if anyone could explain how to do a proper clean install using the upgrade disc. Thanks.
BTW, I am running the home edition of vista and would be going to home premium of windows 7 if that makes any difference.