Windows 7: Installing Windows 7 with two HDDs

Well, I have two hard drives on my computer. The C drive hosts all the system files and the Windows installation while the E drive has my games and my music. Do I have to format the E drive when I install 7, or do I only have to format the C drive ? I am running XP at the moment.

You just select one drive for the install of the OS itself to go to, assumably the XP one, and it will overwrite it.

You don't need to format things yourself. If you just do a clean install on top of your XP installation, it should simply more your prior install to the windows.old folder where you can go in to retrieve files later if there's anything you forget to back up.

You can leave any other drives untouched as long as they're not somehow part of the OS. You might even want to physically disconnect your E drive temporarily though just to ensure you don't accidentally install to it, get the 100MB system reserved partition accidentally installed to it, etc.

hi stenL, welcome to sevenforums,

you can also keep your xp install in case you decide for whatever reason that you don't like 7.

you can find instructions for a dual-boot setup here.

you can safely leave your e: drive alone - it's a great idea to keep your data away from your os for this very reason. you will however have to install the majority of your games again, some may still work, but most probably won't. also, as poin2 suggests, you may even want to disconnect the second drive during the windows install just so you don't make any silly mistakes...

enjoy your new os! and if you have any more questions, we're all here to help.

Ok, thanks a lot for that. I'll just take the connectors out of the E drive when I reinstall. I now have a second question. Will there be problems with the registry with the games installed on the E drive after C is formatted ? Should I perhaps backup my current registry ?

your backed-up registry will be useless with your new os.

you will have to reinstall your games again. a few may work without reinstalling, most won't.

OK, thanks again.

Also use Windows Easy Transfer to save your user settings from XP.
Put the transfer file on the E drive, do your clean install on C drive and after you get Windows 7 running and all the drivers installed run esy transfer and all you settings will be there. I have done this 5 times on many different systems and it works.

Good Luck and Welcome to Windows 7 Forum!!