Windows 7: OEM and PC World

Hi
This is my first visit. I have an Acer X1300 purchased from PC World 16 months ago with Windows XP OEM and free Windows 7 upgrade. I believe the hard drive is failing and have contacted PC World. They say that if the hard drive is faulty I will need to purchase a full version of Windows 7. Is this correct? Help please.

Thanks

Cordite

As far as I can make out, they are BSing. XP cannot be "upgrade installed" to Windows 7, in other words you need to do a clean install that'll wipe out the OS partition and install Windows 7 afresh. So whether you use the upgrade kit on the current hard drive or a new one, in either case a clean install will need to be performed.

As we know, upgrade disks can be legally used to perform clean installs provided the user owns a previous, qualifying OS such as XP that you already do. Heres a tut of how to go about it.

Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

You'll need to use the product key you'll get with the upgrade kit.