Windows 7 - Doing a Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

OK, so I did everything last night - Windows 7 HP 64-bit is on and running like a dream. There were two issues that I ran into.

1) It did not recognize my (one year old and very very good) graphics card. Not sure if others had this issue with NVIDIA, but it actually took me an hour and 30 minutes!!! to download the driver from their site. (Not my connection speed, as I downloaded 10 other programs and transferred all my files over in the same time period simultaneously.)

2) When working on the partitions, it actually came up with FOUR lines. The C: partition that the OS was on, the D: partition that had the RECOVERY, some small unallocated space AND another partition that was like 1 GB that I had never seen before.

I was able to "expand" the unallocated space and extra partition into the main one, but the 10 GB "recovery" D: partition would not combine with the C: one no matter what I did. The "delete" button was greyed out. I was able to "format" it, but that was about it.

Not exactly sure why that happened. Tried everything I could including formatting both. Well, at least I have a 10 GB formatted partition now rather than one filled with the recovery BS. I suppose I can put my back-up image or whatever you guys were talking about on that along with some important files I want duplicates of. Too late now to fix it anyway.

Use a third party partition manager like Easeus, Paragon or Partition Wizard to delete the partition and gather your unallocated space for future use.

It might be an EISA partition used by some makers to lock recovery in place, but it shouldn't format if so. You can still try the diskpart override commands needed to get rid of it: Delete and Remove to Unlock EISA Hidden Recovery or Diagnostic Partition in Vista My Digital Life

Did you give Windows Updates a chance to deliver that graphics driver? It is normally one of the first to be delivered if not in the installer. Most Windows 7 Nvidia are WHQL (Windows Hardware Quality Labs) which were developed in partnership between MS-Nvidia). Between installer and Updates, I never have to go hunt drivers any more with Windows 7 unless I want to compare.

“How to” Dual boot Ubuntu and Windows 7 (Ubuntu installed first) - Ubuntu Forums

Can I do that without disrupting the partition I have windows on now? Will it just add the extra space to it? I don't want to mess anything up at this point.

I did. The issue was that it didn't recognize the graphics card as anything other than generic. I was mortified when I saw the "Windows 7 Basic" design and how ugly it was. I did windows update twice and tried to "update driver" on device manager and nothing worked. It wasn't a big deal - just took FOREVER!

191.07 is one of the latest from Nvidia.

Returning to my own question that wasn't really answered. I know the difference between both installs however what I am asking is does custom and clean install with upgrade give you the same performance on your computer? The steps are almost the same. Unless proven otherwise, looks like I'll be doing a custom install.

Kuliddar,

There is no performance difference at all between doing a clean or custom install. Only the custom install will give you a windows.old folder.

Hope this helps better,
Shawn

Thank you I also actually meant a clean install since, as Silver I have a Dell and want to get rid of the recovery partition.

Yeah. I mean, I wasn't able to get rid of it. I formatted it and cleaned it out - but it is still there. Not a big deal in the end, I guess.

I have copied the driver file from system32 to a DVD. Do i also copy the file in windows32 named DRIVERSTORE. I'm running rc7100 ??.

How do I print your excellent post on install?

Thanks

I believe the system32 Drivers file holds you installed drivers, while driverstore/file repository holds all drivers on installer.