I currently have Win 7 Home 32 bit installed. I will be upgrading my system and using a new Sata hard drive.I would like to install my Win 7 retail upgrade disk [ the 64 bit version ] on the new drive.Can I do this? If so what would be the easiest way to retain all information from my current 32 bit drive?
View 9 RepliesI have an old XP system that has died and i am building a new system to replace it. I'd like to use Win 7 on the new system meaning that the current XP software will be retired. I am purchasing new SATA HDDs and will not be using the ATA133 that has the XP installed.
If I understand correctly I can use an upgrade version of the Win 7 to perform a clean install on my new system. Correct? Any tutorials available on the process?
I have a bit of a strange question about installing the Windows 7 upgrade. I'll try to keep it as simple as I can. Firstly
1: I currently have Windows XP SP3 Home Edition installed (and activated) on my 160GB WD Caviar Blue hard drive, which has 8MB cache. It's getting a bit full now.
2. This hard drive is one of the few remnants of a Dell machine I bought a few years ago.
Surprisingly, the restore disk still works and activates, even though I've changed the motherboard and a number of other things over the years. My last reinstall was about a year ago, and I had no problems reactivating whatsoever - I didn't even need to phone Microsoft.
However I doubt it'll install and activate on a new hard drive - particularly as I've also changed the DVD drive since my last activation (as the old one broke), literally the only things remaining from the old system would be the RAM and the processor.
2: I have purchased a 500GB WD Caviar Blue with 16MB Cache
3: I intend to buy Windows 7 Pro Upgrade from TheUltimateSteal for £30. I'm a student, but will be graduating soon, so it seems sensible to take advantage of this offer while I can.
4. Clearly I can install Windows 7 in the normal way onto my current drive and use the 500GB drive for backing up my files, which I'll do if that's the only option.
5. However, if I did that I would not be taking full advantage of the extra cache of the new drive. It would be nice if I could use that for my primary installation to speed things up a bit.
So here's my question:
If I start the upgrade process having booted from the 160GB drive, but during installation select my 500GB drive as the target for the installation, will Windows 7 install and activate correctly? Will it recognise the pre-existing installation, even though it was on a different drive?
If not, then:
If I install my Dell restore disk on the new drive, and don't activate Windows (which presumably I won't be able to), and then run the Windows 7 upgrade on THAT drive, will Windows 7 install and activate correctly?
Basically, is there a legitimate way of installing a Windows 7 Upgrade onto the 500GB drive, on the basis of there currently being a valid XP installation on the 160GB drive?
I have no intention of continuing to use XP after the upgrade, if I am able to install and activate Windows 7 to the new drive, then this will serve only as a backup for my files.
Has anybody tried something similar and succeeded/failed?
I've already read the tutorials on here about doing a clean install of Windows 7. I'd like to avoid dodgy workarounds, as I'd rather not run into problems further down the line when it comes to updates and that sort of thing.
I have a 1 TB Western Digital Caviar Black hard disk. While installing Windows 7, a screen for hard disk partition was asked. I created 4 drives: 200 GB, 200 GB, 200 GB and 400 GB. And then the windows 7 got installed. But now when I log into my PC, I can only see first 3 200 GB drives. Where did my 400 GB drive go? What mistake did I do and how can I recover it back?
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have few questions on Windows 7 Upgrade. Currently I'm using windows vista home premium 64 bit and I bought an windows 7 home premium 64 bit upgrade disk.
first thing is I want to format my previous operating system and all the data in my laptop and install windows 7 in it using the Upgrade disk.
second thing is I don't have my vista installation disk with, my laptop was pre-installed with vista so in future if I want to switch can I get back VISTA using system restore.
third is can i install windows 7 on a new hard disk using a windows 7 Upgrade disk?
if I asume that a machine can boot from a USB harddisk, is there a way to install windows 7 from a USB harddisk without having to format my USB Hardisk? I read a tutorial for installing windows 7 from a USB Key, and I assume it works with a USB Hardisk too, but since the drive size is 250GB it would be crazy to format all of that to create the ISO image.
would it be possible to create let's say a small 4 GB partition and make it active/primary and write the ISO to that partition, and boot from it?
I am having a compaq laptop.I am having a 500GB spare HDD which can be used as internal HDD. Its totally empty.Currently there is a 250GB HDD attached to my laptop which is having windows 7.I want to replace my 250GB HDD with 500GB HDD and install windows 7.But my DVD Drive is not working and I also dont have a USB(pen drive).I can connect my 500GB HDD as an external HDD via USB.What i want is to install windows 7 on my 500GB HDD by creating a partion in that 500GB HDD and replacing it with installation of windows 7.and than i'll replace my 250GB HDD with 500GB HDD and install windows 7 via that that partition that i created in 500GB HDD.I dont know how to make that partition bootable.
View 1 Replies View RelatedDo I need to format my hard disk before installing Windows 7?
View 6 Replies View Relatedi'm running Ubuntu 11.10 and its working great , lately i wanted to install windows 7 alongside Ubuntu because there's no itunes on it, the problem is W7 can detect my Hard Disk and it says a driver is required ,thought that W7 has all the sata drivers ,i've installed W7 a millions times before but never seen this message .
View 4 Replies View Relatedi'm running Ubuntu 11.10 and its working great , lately i wanted to install windows 7 alongside Ubuntu because there's no itunes on it, the problem is W7 can detect my Hard Disk and it says a driver is required ,thought that W7 has all the sata drivers ,i've installed W7 a millions times before but never seen this message .
View 4 Replies View Relatedi'm running Ubuntu 11.10 and its working great , lately i wanted to install windows 7 alongside Ubuntu because there's no itunes on it, the problem is Windows 7 can detect my Hard Disk and it says a driver is required ,thought that Windows 7 has all the sata drivers ,i've installed Windows 7 a millions times before but never seen this message .
View 3 Replies View RelatedI messed up whilst installing windows 7 over older windows 7 drive. I formatted the windows 7 drive and again tried to deleted that partition, but that deletion process took around 10-15 minutes, so restarted my system. Now i cannot install any of the windows os or even linux.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI messed up whilst installing windows 7 over older windows 7 drive. I formatted the windows 7 drive and again tried to deleted that partition, but that deletion process took around 10-15 minutes, so restarted my system. Now i cannot install any of the windows os or even linux.
View 1 Replies View RelatedI messed up whilst installing windows 7 over older windows 7 drive. I formatted the windows 7 drive and again tried to deleted that partition, but that deletion process took around 10-15 minutes, so restarted my system. Now i cannot install any of the windows os or even linux .
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have a HP Probook 4530swith Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. When I turn on the PC the windows does'nt start and give a option of starting windows manually, which does'nt work, and repair windows. Repairing windows with windows 7I then decided to reinstall windows 7, but while installing, on the select disk page, it shows a error saying no drives found.I then performed a Hard Disk Test which resulted in failure saying:Failure ID : UC7WX0-5NB67S-XD6V5G-60TF03
View 2 Replies View RelatedLow disk space, Can transfer data on D drive to an external hard drive
View 5 Replies View RelatedI can see my external hard drive in device manager, but not in my comp
View 3 Replies View RelatedI deleted the post because i realized thaT I had an older post here that came close to the same subject and no one replied - so i have no reason to believe anyone would reply to this one.
View 1 Replies View RelatedAlright, so after a few days of hardware checking I've determined that the cause of my computer being as messed up as it is is the hard drive.
Seagate's own SeaTools says it failed the drive tests, and I'm gonna have to call them later and get an RMA on it.
Well, how would I go about installing Windows 7 on my replacement hard drive? I've installed and activated it a few times on this same drive, but I think that's because the activation system detects the exact same hardware, therefore it lets me keep activating it.
If I put in a different hard drive, though, won't it see it as a different computer and deny me the chance to activate it? (Same goes with my OEM Student version of Office 2007)
So what would you guys suggest? Can I de-activate it from one computer then activate it on another? or what?
I have installed a few drives in my time. But something I do not understand has happened in drive manager in Win 7.Obviously I have to initialise a new drive before I can format and partition it, but when I go to initialise another box comes up and identifies the new drive and asks to I want to partition it with MFT tables?? Not seen that before I obviously dont want to move any boot partitions from my C drive.I have drive C with hidden boot partition, main active system partition and a data partition (logical).The new drive will be E, is 1TB and I want to partition into 4 logical drives. I know how to do it, query is what is the box that comes up and asks whether I want MFT or another version?? Is it safe to say OK.
View 6 Replies View RelatedI have pre-purchased a Windows 7 professional upgrade and am trying to determine my install options when it is available.
I am currently running Windows Xp pro and have a computer with 2 identical hard drives. I know I will have to do a clean install from Xp. I would like to install Windows 7 on the second hard drive and be able to use both Windows 7 and Xp until I am familiar enough with Windows 7 to confidently abandon Xp.
I have a hard drive switch that I will use to boot to the OS that I want to use. I elected to do this instead of using dual boot. Currently that switch is not installed.
I would like to install Windows 7 on the second hard drive, but am concerned that I will need to verify that I have an authentic copy of Xp for that to work.
Will there be options during the install so that I can select the second drive as the place to install Windows 7 (and make it a bootable drive)? I would not like to get into a situation where I would be overwriting Windows Xp on the drive I currently boot from.
So I been trying to follow this guide, but it hasn't been working. I set the computer to boot from usb and then it will just sit there. I tried with an empty flash drive and it would say no bootable table or something similar, so it does detect my hard drive having something bootable and fails.
So far, despite following the directions, when I try to boot from the external hard drive it just hangs there and the screen never opens (unless I need to really wait a really long time).
It seems the missing detail is likely that I have to make the hard drive bootable.
However, so far, all the guides that talks about making them bootable requires to clean the drive (well flash, but I guess hard drives requires that too). That defeats one of the biggest selling points in this guide, no need to delete any files (also to note, I seperated the hard drive into two partitions as directed, the cmd only see them as one). So how does one make it bootable without clearing all the files.
Update: How to make your external HD bootable It seems that it should work for that person, I don't understand what is my problem. When I try to boot from USB, it just hangs there and the Windows7 setup never appears.
Another thing to note that this laptop is a dell 1520 which is powerful enough for the 64-bit, though currently I think it is on 32-bit vista.
Found an old laptop in my attic last night, tried to boot it up but the operating system on it is corrupt (ie it won't boot up - stuck i in a loop and keep switching on and off), inserted my Windows 7 disk to try and install that but the disk drive seems to be broken too
View 14 Replies View RelatedSo let me explain my situation. I have a 15 month old laptop, with a dying hard drive. Quite frequently when it spins up, the hard drive makes a horrible buzzing/scraping noise. I decided I will invest the money and replace it for the $100 and get a faster one (7200 rpm).
Here's the catch. I have an upgrade disk on order, and only an OEM backup disk (Vista) to reformat.
Whats the best way to replace the hard disk and use an upgrade media to use 7 on my computer?
My PC's Windows Experience index rating is currently at 5.9 due to my HDD. It's a Seagate Barracuda 7200.10 500GB. Which HDD should I look at to get more performance out of the rig? All the other fields are in the 7.0 to 7.6 range.
View 6 Replies View Relatedi have a retail upgrade version of windows 7 professional x86 am i able to format the hard drive using the disk...i dont want to use it to install windows 7
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have a Lenovo Thinkpad T410. Win7 came pre-installed on hard drive without DVD copies. I want to put in a new solid state hard drive. Is there a way to create a Windows installation disc so I can format and install Win7 on the new hard drive? I know there's a copy of Win7 on a partition on the hard drive but I don't know what to do to make a DVD.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have Windows 7 originally installed on an old HDD and recently purchased an SSD.How do I go about installing windows 7 into the SSD and deleting it from the old HDD?Is a reformat of the HDD the only way?
View 4 Replies View RelatedIn my 8 years of serious computing, I have never had to replace a HDD but I am going to have to do it for the first time sometime earlier next week when the new one along with the recovery media from Acer gets here.I have managed to locate a service manual for my Acer Notebook model series here.The new HDD is a WD500BPKT @ 7200RPM The old HDD is a WD3200BEVT-22ZCT0 @ 5400RPM Will I need to install new drivers (SCSI etc.) or anything else, or is it a simple plug-and-play operation once the recovery media is booted off of the disks and installed?I suspect I will need to change the BIOS Boot Order so that the opticle drive is first rather than IDE 0 to get the disks to come up, so that's a non-issue.
View 9 Replies View RelatedSo I am building my first computer so i bought my new motherboard, processor,etc.. and windows 7, but i am using an old hard drive from my broken computer that has windows xp on it. Before it all gets to my house i was curious on how to wipe the hard drive and install windows 7.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI have a quad core i720 intel processor and the asus p6t deluxe V2 motherboard and a basic 512 video card. I installed Vista 64 bit first - took about 50 minutes. Then installed Windows 7 RC1 on a second hard drive (dual boot) and it installed in 20 minutes.
It couldnt find the divers for chipset but shortly after it said I didnt have them installed (they werent available on the mb setup disk nor on Asus website) and it asked if I wanted them installed and windows installed the drivers. Much more intuitive.
Also I looked at the processes running on initial startup - I had perhaps 8 on windows 7 and perhaps 25-30 on vista. That alone made me a believer.
Now it wont run all of the software i would like to run (some antivirus and antispyware - spydoctor - zonealarm etc) but that was the same thing initially for vista. Oh superatispyware ran from the get go on vista and does on windows 7. I cant figure out why other antispyware and antivirus companies hem themselves and make a product that is so OS version specific.
Overall I am impressed with windows 7 - far less processes running in the background.
The beta of win 7 crashed when I tried to join my domain. Had to reinstall then I left well enough alone. The RC1 joined domain without a hitch. Less trouble than either XP or Vista.
Runs my business programs just fine. been testing those for a month.
Also pleased with the try before you buy concept. I can use the win 7 setup thhrough may 31 2010.
Would like to see the price of the OS come down a bit. Close to $300 is a little steep to convert more of my machines to win 7. I am running a laptop with vista, 2 desktops with vista. and three desktops with XP.