Hard Drive upgrade queries…

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Hello Everyone,

I have a laptop from a few years back that just got fixed, since I sent it to the manufacturer they reset everything back to the factory default. Currently it has Windows Vista and a 250Gb HDD, but I’ve been thinking of switching it with a 500Gb HDD I have laying around. I have a few questions I want clear up before I upgrade though.

I plan on installing a copy of Windows 7 Professional on the computer, I’ve done a bit of research, but everyone seems to recommend to “clone” the HDD to the new drive. Is it possible to install the HDD and then Windows 7 without “cloning” the old one? If so, how would I go about this?

Will the computer peripherals and devices still work with the new drive? In particular the DVD-RW, so I can use the installation disk?

Is there some special procedure I must follow in order to install the OS? Are the drivers stored in the HDD, would I have to make those available to the system somehow?

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You should run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see if there are any obvious issues in running Windows 7 on your PC.

If you have all of your application programs installed under Vista and do not want to go through that process again you should upgrade to Windows 7 and then clone the HDD. Remember that you can never upgrade if change from a 32-bit to 64-bit OS or from a 64-bit to a 32-bit OS. That always requires a clean install.

In any event, before beginning any changes to hardware or operating system make an image backup of your PC.

Joe

--Joe

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You should run the Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor to see if there are any obvious issues in running Windows 7 on your PC.

If you have all of your application programs installed under Vista and do not want to go through that process again you should upgrade to Windows 7 and then clone the HDD. Remember that you can never upgrade if change from a 32-bit to 64-bit OS or from a 64-bit to a 32-bit OS. That always requires a clean install.

In any event, before beginning any changes to hardware or operating system make an image backup of your PC.

Joe

I already know the PC can handle W7, since I had it installed before I sent it to get repaired. I don’t really care for anything installed on the PC right now since all it has is just the bloatware I plan to replace. That’s why I was wondering if there is another option other than cloning the HDD. Either way I plan to do a Clean Install of W7.

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I already know the PC can handle W7, since I had it installed before I sent it to get repaired. I don’t really care for anything installed on the PC right now since all it has is just the bloatware I plan to replace. That’s why I was wondering if there is another option other than cloning the HDD. Either way I plan to do a Clean Install of W7.

If you have Windows 7 DVD you can install the new HDD and then install Windows 7 on it.

If the Windows 7 media is an upgrade see Paul Thurrott’s SuperSite for Windows: Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media for details on “how to”.

Joe

--Joe

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Success! Thanks everyone, I was a little doubtful from past experiences, but the installation (Both of the HDD and W7) went perfectly.

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Success! Thanks everyone, I was a little doubtful from past experiences, but the installation (Both of the HDD and W7) went perfectly.

Now that you have everything up and running you may want to look at How To Geek to find hundreds of tips and tweaks to customize and speed up your OS. Have fun!

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