Windows 7 Installed on Wrong Drive

foreplay101 · 04 Oct 2014

Hi
I was re installing windows because I contracted a virus and decided that I would wipe everything and do a clean installation. I did this since I have nothing important or anything that cannot be re installed at a later time on my computer.

After I booted using the installation disk, windows installed perfectly and I began installing the various programs back onto the computer. However, while i was in the process of this, I received a warning that I could not install a program because my disk space was full. This should have been impossible since I thought I installed windows on my 2tb hard drive.

Now, I am currently trying to install windows on my 2 tb drive, but am having no luck after following one tutorial on how to do this where I went into "My Computer's" management section under Disk Management, and attempted to clear the existing data on the 2 tb drive. In doing so the 2 tb drive is now listed as "System Reserve", and I am in over my head.

Any help or any links directing me to success will be greatly appreciated.

Gator · 04 Oct 2014

Hi foreplay and welcome to Sevenforums!

You need to unplug any and all internal hard drives or any other hard drive connected via USB. You only want monitor, mouse, keyboard, HDD you plan on putting OS on and obviously power connected. You need to use your Windows 7 install disk and set your bios to boot from CD.

After that I would use the options to completely wipe your hard drive and then install Windows 7 on the newly formatted hard drive. Here are a few links to help:
First clean the Hard drive and get it ready to install Windows on it
SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

Then follow the install guide

Clean Install guide:
Clean Install Windows 7

(Alternatively, if you don't want to use Diskpart, when you boot the Windows 7 install disk and start the installation, you can simply delete the partition's so that you have 1 unallocated space in which to install Windows 7 on, to do this, choose Advanced Options when you get to the screen to pick the partition in which to install windows 7 on and delete any partitions that are on that 2tb harddrive)