Do i have to partition my hard drive for clean install?

eldraw44 · 27 Oct 2009

hi,
I have download windows 7, backed up all my drivers and copied all my important info onto my external Hard drive and am about to try and clean install windows 7.

But do i have to partition the hard drive? My Dell laptop has a 110GB hard drive which came already partitioned. 10GB is called 'Recovery', do i need to do the same and make a larger partition and install Windows 7 or just leave it as it is?

thanks!

lewis · 27 Oct 2009

eldraw44 said:

hi,
I have download windows 7, backed up all my drivers and copied all my important info onto my external Hard drive and am about to try and clean install windows 7.

But do i have to partition the hard drive? My Dell laptop has a 110GB hard drive which came already partitioned. 10GB is called 'Recovery', do i need to do the same and make a larger partition and install Windows 7 or just leave it as it is?

thanks!

Hi by that do you mean you are attempting to dual boot with an older version of windows, and your asking if you need to make a recovery drive for wndows 7? IF this is the case you wont need to make a recovery drive but you will need to partition the 100gb hard drive as you cant install 7 on the recovery partition.

Or are you saying that you have a 10gb for recovery and the other 100gb clean and ready for install on the 100gb?

If the answer to the second one is yes, just install it. If you are installing it over windows, a new file called windows.old will be made, and you can extract all of your files from the previous windows if needed.

mickey megabyte · 27 Oct 2009

hi eldraw44, and welcome to sevenforums,

the 10gb partition is the dell recovery system, and is there in case you wish to restore your laptop to the exact same state it was when it was shipped to you - was it with vista?, and lots of unwanted crapware?

if you're sure you never want to go back to factory settings, you can delete this partition, and merge the space with your current 100 gigs.

are you planning to do a dual-boot system with your drive, so you still keep your existing os and run 7 alongside it, or were you going to nuke your current install and run 7 on its own?

eldraw44 · 27 Oct 2009

Hi by that do you mean you are attempting to dual boot with an older version of windows, and your asking if you need to make a recovery drive for wndows 7? IF this is the case you wont need to make a recovery drive but you will need to partition the 100gb hard drive as you cant install 7 on the recovery partition.

Or are you saying that you have a 10gb for recovery and the other 100gb clean and ready for install on the 100gb?

If the answer to the second one is yes, just install it. If you are installing it over windows, a new file called windows.old will be made, and you can extract all of your files from the previous windows if needed.[/QUOTE]

thanks for the quick reply, i dont want to dual boot i only want one OS. what im asking really is do i need to have a partition on my hard drive like i have now? Should i get rid of the partition or is it safer to keep a recovery partition?

eldraw44 · 27 Oct 2009

mickey megabyte said:

hi eldraw44, and welcome to sevenforums,

the 10gb partition is the dell recovery system, and is there in case you wish to restore your laptop to the exact same state it was when it was shipped to you - was it with vista?, and lots of unwanted crapware?

if you're sure you never want to go back to factory settings, you can delete this partition, and merge the space with your current 100 gigs.

are you planning to do a dual-boot system with your drive, so you still keep your existing os and run 7 alongside it, or were you going to nuke your current install and run 7 on it's own?

OK thank you ill delete the partition, then install. How do i go about deleting the partition?

cheers

mickey megabyte · 27 Oct 2009

what operating system are you using at the moment?

eldraw44 · 27 Oct 2009

mickey megabyte said:

what operating system are you using at the moment?

Vista 32-bit

mickey megabyte · 27 Oct 2009

ok - near the beginning of the install process, you will be asked what type of installation you want, whether upgrade or custom(advanced).

choose custom, and you will taken to a screen something like this:

but yours will show two partitions - select the one you don't want, and delete it.

then extend the other one to use up the extra space. i suppose it wouldn't hurt to format it first if you are sure you don't want anything off of it.

read a lot more about the install process here.

hope this helps, and enjoy your new os - we are always here to help if you have any more problems.

mickey megabyte · 27 Oct 2009

after saying all that, eldraw, i'm a little concerned that you may find you have troubles with windows 7, for unforeseen reasons - maybe your video driver won't work properly or something.

in that case, you may need to go back to vista - do you have recovery dvds for vista that you can use to reinstall if necessary? and do these discs rely on the dell recovery partition to operate?

is there anything on the dell website which says your laptop is compatible? - if it could run vista, then it should be ok with 7, but there's always the slim chance that it isn't...

eldraw44 · 27 Oct 2009

mickey megabyte said:

after saying all that, eldraw, i'm a little concerned that you may find you have troubles with windows 7, for unforeseen reasons - maybe your video driver won't work properly or something.

in that case, you may need to go back to vista - do you have recovery dvds for vista that you can use to reinstall if necessary? and do these discs rely on the dell recovery partition to operate?

I have tried using the Windows 7 Upgrade Adviser which has given me the thumbs up on the 3 system requirements and a green tick for all the drivers.
I do have all the disks that came with the laptop like the Reinstallation Vista disk and the Drivers and Utilities disk, but am not sure if they rely on the partition?