Replacing hard drive and installing W7


  1. Posts : 3
    Essex
       #1

    Replacing hard drive and installing W7


    I use a trayless hot swap rack. I have dear old XP3 on one drive which I swap for one with W7. The W7 hard drive is showing its age and so I have bought another drive. I still have my original W7 installation pack together with the product key. My desktop is to stay the same apart from my probably increasing the RAM from 2GB upto 4GB.
    My questions are: My new drive is the latest Seagate 1TB......should I go for 32Bit or 64Bit?
    Am I likely to encounter any problems in the installation of W7 on the drive whilst it is still on the old drive?
      My Computer

  2.    #2

    I would use 32 bit for up to 4gb RAM for best performance. Your hardware will use some RAM so that all will be accessible.

    Delete all partitions on the HD during the booted install, with all other HD's unplugged. Boot your choice of HD's from the BIOS if you ever plug in more than one.

    Look over these same steps for Clean Reinstall - Factory OEM Windows 7 compilng what's worked best in tens of thousands of installs we've directly helped with here.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 3
    Essex
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Thanks for the reply. It is a brand new hard drive so hasn't been partitioned. My system is that you remove one hard drive from the swap tray and replace it with another drive.....there is never more than one drive connected so I don't have to go into BIOS to select a drive ......the system just finds the one in the tray. Never installed an OS on a drive before so presumed I could just insert the brand new drive, maybe format for the sake of it and then just run the installation CD. After that then do all the updates and then think about loading drives and programs. Am I being naive here.....is there more to it than that?
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 12,012
    Windows 7 Home Premium SP1, 64-bit
       #4

    baysie said:
    presumed I could just insert the brand new drive, maybe format for the sake of it and then just run the installation CD. After that then do all the updates and then think about loading drives and programs. Am I being naive here.....is there more to it than that?
    That's about it.

    You don't have to format. Just boot from the installation disc and select where you want to install Windows when you come to that screen. The formatting will automatically take place when you proceed. In nearly all cases, Windows will supply necessary drivers. I'd probably download the NIC (Ethernet) driver before I started on the off chance that Windows didn't supply it.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 3
    Essex
    Thread Starter
       #5

    Thanks for that....very helpful.
    I recently encountered a problem getting on to the internet using the ethernet connection. It transpired there was something wrong with the card on the motherboard so a new separate ethernet adapter was installed and the old one switched off in the BIOS. (I'm relying on memory here of what I was told as I don't understand these things). When I got the machine back it worked fine and when I changed drives the new adapter was found and self-installed the appropriate driver. Hopefully, the same thing will happen with the new drive.
    Going back to the matter of whether to d/l 32bit or 64bit, as I am contemplating having a new computer built in the next year but retaining my hard drives from the existing machine, should that sway me towards 64bit?
    Am I likely to encounter any problem with activating the new installation/drive given that the product key was used on the original drive back in 2009?
    Thanks again for the advice.
      My Computer

  6.    #6

    If you plan to install any more than 4gb total RAM then I would use 64 bit.

    You can migrate a retail Product Key to any other PC or change any hardware you want as long as it's only on one PC at a time. Only if it's OEM version can you not change the motherboard.
      My Computer


 

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