Windows 7: Install Windows 7 to secondary drive

Hi,

I bought this computer for my wife two years ago. To keep the price down, I limited the hard drive to 20 gb. Big mistake! By the way, SIW says its size is 320 gb, which is curious, but it really only holds 20 gb. That's what I paid for and that's what Windows says it holds.

Anyway, I recently bought a 500 gb drive for a data drive. When I copied her data over, I realized that even with all her music files, she only has about 4 gb of data. The other 15 gb are taken up by Windows XP and applications! In any case, the nearly empty new drive is currently drive 1 and the old drive is, of course, drive 0.

I'm getting to the point. I want to install Windows 7 Ultimate on the 500 gb drive. Data is backed up on an external drive (and Carbonite) and I plan to reformat the new drive when installing the new OS. I'm wondering if I need to take any particular steps for everything to work out and if so, in what order.

1. Do I need to do anything in the BIOS to reverse the priority of the drives, i.e., make the new drive primary?

2. Is there anything I need to do to remove any ownership Windows XP feels towards the new drive?

3. Is it ok to just reformat the old drive at the same time (get rid of XP)? Does it matter? There's no interest in making it dual boot.

Thanks so much in advance for any clarification you can provide!

Welcome to the windows forums Sped800.
You might want to fill out your systems specifications under the CP menu.

Answering your questions in order. Based on whether your drives are SATA or IDE
1. if SATA, I would reverse the two data cables for the drives so that sata 0 was your new larger drive. I would disconnect your other drive so that it would not interfer with your install of the new operating system. Makes it much easier.
1a. if IDE, the drives boot sequence would be based on jumpers on the drive for Master or Slave.

After you have installed windows on your new drive then you can connect your older drive and format it to use as a data drive.

2. removing the old drive by not connecting the data cable will preclude anything going wrong in installing your new windows.

3. by booting your new OS dvd, it will install on your new hard disk. If you have formatted it alread, then you will have to delete the existing partitions on your new drive and create a brand new partion and then install the OS.

this makes it much simpler and less prone to installing your os on the wrong drive.


Rich

If transfering from Win XP, download the update WET from here:
Download Details - Microsoft Download Center - Windows Easy Transfer for transferring from Windows XP (32 bit) to Windows 7

Windows Easy Transfer - Transfer To & From Computers

Warning do not use the old Win XP Easy Transfer, will not work with Vista or Windowds 7.

If you would like to do a clean install have read of those tutorials:
Clean Install Windows 7
Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version
SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Rich,

Thanks so much. This makes a lot of sense and sounds easy. I was so uncertain about all the variables.

Thanks also for the nice welcome. I used to live in Rockville, many years ago. Not sure I could find it now. ;-)

About my system specs, I'm confused. I loaded them when I registered and when I look in my User CP menu, they're there. But then, how would I as a reader see someone else's system specs?

Anyway, both hard drives are SATA. Thanks again for the clear instructions!

Steve

Your more than welcome. Many times KISS works best Simple work...
I now see your system spec's, evidently they don't show up with new users
for a short time..

Glad to have helped.
you can close this thread by clicking the green arrow at the top of your message.

Rich

Rich,

It all worked out beautifully! Thanks again, that was just the explanation I needed. Thanks also to Theog and GregRocker.

Thanks also to the

-Steve

You are welcome.