Hey I would like to know if I could do a clean install of windows 7 home premium on my hp dv6 that already has home premium but the backup is full of bloatware and such.
If I download one of the isos suggested on lifehacker, burn it on a dvd and then install it, can I use the same windows key i have?
Is there something I should be carefull about? Like drivers and such?
Thanks!
Which same windows key?
Are you planning on using the one that is stickered somewhere on the HP machine?
If it's a laptop - you may well need drivers - you can almost certainly d/l them from HP site.
If you made your HP/Compaq Recovery Disks, you have a drivers disk. or Copy folder C:\Swsetup
As far as I understand it, the key is independent of the installer you use, as long as the key matches the version of windows you are installing. You should be able to use any installer and then activate it with the key. Before you do anything, I would see about making a set of recovery CDs. If your backup OS is installed in a hidden partition, like is the case with many OEMs now, most of the time you can make a CD version of this to restore your computer in case something happens to the backup partition. This would be a safety net in case something goes wrong. You could also image your current OS partition with clonezilla so that you can restore it in case something goes wrong. At least you would be back where you started.
It is best to have your OS and apps in their own partition on the outer edge of the drive. Your data should be in another partition. This makes the reinstall process much simpler and your OS will perform better. Your OS images will also be of reasonable size. If you don't have this setup, now would be a good time to re-arrange your storage.
You should be able to download any drivers you need from the HP web site. Windows 7 is pretty good at not needing third party drivers, so you may be able to install and then use windows update to find the most up to date hardware drivers if you can't get them from HP.
If you want more detailed instructions on how to do anything above, just post back.
LMHmedchem
Great! Thanks for the repplies! So far I have nothing on the notebook other than final draft and some videos.
As far as I understand, I first do a system backup, then take note of the drivers just in case.
After I download the same version (home premium 64bit) I burn the iso and install. When asked, I can use the same key that's on the bottom of the notebook.
So, in order to install do I have to reboot or it loads automatically?
Thanks again!
Hello shreddo, welcome to Seven Forums!
Have a look through the information in this tutorial at the link below for some additional ideas and be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.
First clean the HD Drive:So, in order to install do I have to reboot or it loads automatically?
SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation
Than install:
Clean Install Windows 7
Wow great responses, I'll look into all of them and keep you posted if something wrong happens.
Thanks a lot guys!
I would really put windows in a ~50GB partition by itself if you can do that. The system will function better and you will never be in the position of having to worry about backing up all of your data if you need to re-install the OS. You can just re-install the OS and the data partition will be untouched. It makes data backup pretty simple because you just have to run a nightly incremental backup of your data partition. I keep my email and web apps in the data partition so they get backed up and I don't loose my email if I need to re-install.
LMHmedchem
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