Reinstalling Win7 on netbook with two harddrives

daeniken2 · 25 Jun 2011

Hello!

My problem is the following, I'm sorry if it's silly, but I really need to be sure about it.

I have an Asus EEE pc, it has two harddrives in it, C: with the OS on it, and D: with any other stuff. I'd like to reinstall Win7 (from the hidded partition) with formatting the hard drive. I've put everything I need on the D: drive, because I think that if I format the hard drive during the installation it will only format the system drive and not the other one. Am I right about it?

I need a sure answer about it because if there's a chance that the reinstallation might format the other drive too then I have to copy everything to usb drives, dvds, etc.

Thank you!

logicearth · 25 Jun 2011

Why format at all? Just run "setup.exe" from the media you are using while in Windows and pick "Custom Install" it will move all most of the C drive to Windows.old and leave the D drive alone. No fears or worries.

strollin · 25 Jun 2011

If you have a "hidden" restore partition and perform a restore, it would be pointless to format the drive beforehand since the restore will overwrite the partition regardless. I don't believe anyone here can be sure that a restore will only restore the C: partition and not the D:. If you were installing Win 7 from a CD you would have control over which partition you formatted and installed but the restore software provided by the mfr may not give you that much control.

gregrocker · 25 Jun 2011

You don't need to format for full Factory Recovery as the utility does it for you. We'll need to take a look at your drives and recovery to see how to exclude your data drive, either in Recovery settings or by disabling it in BIOS.

Please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Mgmt drive map and listings using Snipping Tool in Start Menu.

Post up your model number so we can look at your Manual.

karlsnooks · 25 Jun 2011

daeniken,

Welcome to SevenForums.

I'll bet that netbook has one and only one phsical drive and that he drive has partitions.

Did that Asus come with Win 7 installed?

Filling out your system specs will would be useful.

UPDATE YOUR SEVENFORUMS SYSTEM SPECS

User CP (3rd item in the top menu bar) |
in left-hand column, under Your Profile, Edit System Spec |

Use Speccy - System Information - Free Download
and/or SIW to gather info for filling in the blanks.

Do me a favor and add the word laptop or desktop to the “system manufacturer” block.

Use the “Other Info” block for Optical Reader, Mouse, touchpad, wifi adapter, speakers, monitor

Scroll down and click on the SAVE CHANGES button.
--------------------------
thanks,
karl

theog · 26 Jun 2011

Before you start make your Recovery disk.

1. Press <F9> during bootup.
Ensure to press <F9> only once during bootup.
2. Select the language you use and click to continue.
3. Repeat the step 1—2 in the previous section.
4. Connect a USB storage device to your Eee PC and click Backup in the Recovery System dialog box to start the recovery files backup.
The size of the connected USB storage device should be larger than 16GB.
Memory cards are not supported for this function.
A dialog box appears as a reminder if you have not connected the USB storage device for system recovery backup to your Eee PC.
5. Select a desired USB storage device if more than one USB storage device is connected to your Eee PC and click Continue.
6. All the data on the selected USB storage device will be cleared. Click Continue to start the backup or click Back to backup your important data.
You will lose all your data on the selected USB storage device. Ensure to back up your important data beforehand
7. The system backup starts and click OK when done.

daeniken2 · 26 Jun 2011

Thank for the help, you are right, I only have one harddrive with several partitions

I filled in my system specs and here's what speccy found out for me about the partitions:

Partition 0 (this is where the system directory is, and several documents, all of them are copied to D: but not deleted from here yet)
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #0
Disk Letter C:
File System NTFS
Volume Serial Number 1E4584B0
Size 100GB
Used Space 58GB (58%)
Free Space 42GB (42%)
Partition 1
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #1
Size 15,0 GB
Partition 2 (this is the other one, it's nearly full because I've already copied stuff from C: )
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #2
Disk Letter D:
File System NTFS
Volume Serial Number 784E1247
Size 118GB
Used Space 112GB (95%)
Free Space 6.30GB (5%)
Partition 3
Partition ID Disk #0, Partition #3
Size 20,1 MB

theog · 26 Jun 2011

Have you made the Recovery disk?

daeniken2 · 26 Jun 2011

theog said:

Have you made the Recovery disk?

I would but I don't have a USB storage device which is larger than 16gb

karlsnooks · 26 Jun 2011

Thanks for the info.

As others have mentioned, when you do that factory reinstall, you will lose everything on there. The reinstall will reformat your hard drive.

What does that mean? Get an external usb drive and copy (you can simply drag and drop) the documents, videos, music and pictures that you do not want to lose.

Let me repeat and emphasize---Your present C : and d: PARTITIONS WILL BE REFORMATTED.

You will also have to install about 50-90 updates to the resulting Win 7.

I just want you to be aware of what is ahead.

You will be reinstalling ALL of your favorite programs.

Would you maybe like to consider another solution to your present problem.

Something prompted you to want to do a restore to the factory state.

karl