reinstall without discs

I’ve bought a PC with Win 7 Pro pre-loaded; so I have the activation code but it came without disks
I want to upgrade the hard drive but how do I reinstall the Win 7 without these disks; or even can I?


I do have a copy of Win 7 Home Premium which came with my old now “dead” PC, but I’m lead to believe that this has an embedded code in it which locks it to this old redundant PC and is therefore unuseable?

Hi Maxie
Thanks a bunch for this! This would seem to be the perfect answer; I just need a clear day (no problem), a clear head (always difficult), and lots of coffee and a good touch of patience; which is always in short supply!
I will attack this once I have all of the above in place, together with the replacement HD
Thank heavens for forums, that’s all I can say!!
Once again thanks a lot
Richard

Hi all

Thanks to Maxie I have a good idea of what is involved, but before I use his guide and reinstall Win 7 I need to select & buy the new HD.

I read that it is better to match the SATA of the existing chipset to maximise transfer speeds? This PC has an Intel(R) N10/ICH7 family Serial ATA Storage Controller 27CD

Which I assume is a SATA 2, but where do I confirm this?
Google is good but all I can find are sites listing (and selling I assume) driver updates

I apologise if my question appears stupid, but I’m just feeling my way here so any advice is good advice and much appreciated

Hi Maxie

Many thanks for your answer re SATA2; although I assume SATA 3 will also work?

Not wishing to outstay my welcome but can I ask a supplementary question?
Reading up on the various HD reviews I come across “GPT & MBR” which I have Googled up so I now know what they are, or at least I think I do
I want to fit at least a 1TB HD (if not bigger); and I believe that my PC has a UEFI BIOS (Windows say that all 64 bit machines do) so runs on GPT
But I also came across a comment that Win 7 cannot work above 1.5TB (something to do with partioning?), so the question is 1TB the maximum I should aim at, or can I go bigger?
Bearing in mind the processor I assume

Does that make sense?

Regards
Richard

Thanks once again Maxie

You have given me much to study and ponder, as in all things we like to get it right the first time
So once again thanks a bunch, and I'll leave you in peace

All the very best
Richard