Installation and Wiping the Hard Drive

Will upgrading to Windows 7 wipe my hard drive? Because, I'm looking to upgrade to Windows 7 under that assumption. Not only do I want to move on up, but I want to wipe away a number of problems I'm having with my computer. All of them probably have to do with the harddrive.

For example, the sleep button is eternally replaced by the "install updates" button, but there are no updates to install and it just sits on an infinite loop. There are some updates that refused to install at all. And there are weird little things that happen with my computer every day, that make it seem as though there's a virus even if there isn't.

I essentially want to start with a clean slate. All of the files and such I consider important will go onto a flash drive.

I will probably get Windows 7 for Xmas, and install it at the beginning of the new year. So I'm wondering - will the update wipe my harddrive? And if not, how can I easily make this happen?

We can't do a clean install with the upgrade version? Noooo...

Edit: Did a Google search here and found out the answer should be YES!

Thanks.

This particular Upgrade disk Custom "clean install" is started from the qualifying OS desktop (not from boot) and does not format the partition/drive, but overwrites the OS and places the files is windows.old for later distribution. But you can also install the Upgrade to another primary pre-formatted partition, or primary pre-formatted second HDD if you want the cleanest possible install.

So gregroocker, can the upgrade disk set up Win7 on any drive/partition.
We were told that win7 had to be installed on the same partition as held the OS being upgraded.

Nosmo said:

So gregroocker, can the upgrade disk set up Win7 on any drive/partition.
We were told that win7 had to be installed on the same partition as held the OS being upgraded.

According to the debate on Technet here WIn7 like Vista can be installed to another partition or HDD as long as you start the upgrade from an activated qualifying XP/Vista/RC and don't continue using the original qualifying OS which is the only restriction.

I just tried it by installing to the first partition from my XP second partition on a laptop and it worked fine. I then deleted the XP after copying files over. I wanted to see if it could install to formatted metal using Upgrade.

So this means you can't format the drive the previous install was on before installing 7?

Wow, I never realized how compter illiterate I was.

Dickstar said:

So this means you can't format the drive the previous install was on before installing 7?

No you have to start an UPgrade from the qualifying activated OS. Then you can UPgrade (resinstall programs, files, settings) Vista, or Custom clean install Vista/XP/RC over itself, to another partition, or HDD.