Question about installing Win 7 and drivers for my motherboard  

Hello,

I am about to upgrade from XP Pro to Win 7 ( doing a fresh install not upgrade version ) I have a question about my motherboard,

each time I did a fresh install of XP Pro which I did about once a year to keep it clean and running faster. Once I would install XP I would then have to put the motherboard DVD in and update the Intel chipset, install the lan drivers, sound driver etc My motherboard is a P5B Deluxe and has intergraded lan, sound and other things that I can remember right now.

I plan to just install Win 7 over the currect XP, I'll format that section of the hard drive then create a new partition and installl 7 to that partition. Do I need to find all those drivers that I use to use from my motherboard DVD or do I do the same thing once Win 7 is installed, put the motherboard dvd in and install the drivers and update the chipset etc. ?? or do I have to find all those things for Win7 ?


I know there are many ways to Install win 7 and I have read all the tutorials and I have decided to install it the way I described above. I'm just not sure about the drivers, will the ones on my motherboard dvd work or does Win 7 have most of them or do I have to find the drivers for Win 7 for my motherboard???

Win7 will find and install most of your devices for you. At the most devices like card readers may not be found. Just install win7, let it find all the devices it wants to, then connect to the internet and update the drivers either in device manager or via the manufacturers' websites.

The one thing I am trying to find out and can't is,

I have one of my hard drives partitioned into 2 partitions and on one of them I have my OS installed. When I install Win 7 will it show me all the partitions or just hard drive? also will it allow me to format the partition that my current OS is on and then let me install Win 7 on the same partition?

Yes, when you boot from the win7 dvd, it'll show you ALL the partitions on the hdd. Since you are currently on XP, you'll need to do a custom (clean) install that'll completely wipe anything on the XP partition, then install win7 on that partition. Heres a nice tut.

Clean Install Windows 7

Yes that is how I want to install Win 7.. thanks