Using upgrade disc on new drive

Hi folks...
I'm moving from Vista Home Premium to W7 Pro and originally thought about a dual boot. But I've convinced myself that I won't use Vista once I get everything reinstalled in W7, and now wish to install W7 Pro on a new drive. I'll take my Vista drive out, install the new drive and load W7, and then, put the Vista drive back in as a secondary so that I'll have easy access to all my data as I complete the changeover. I can then use the Vista drive as a backup, etc.
I've ordered the W7 Pro upgrade disc. Question is, do I need to reinstall Vista on the new drive before I put in the upgrade disc? Or can I just put in the new drive, boot W7 from the install disc, and then insert the Vista disc if it asks for the qualifying media (or does W7 even ask for qualifying media?)
Anybody have a clue?
Thanks all!!!
Ted

You can use Upgrade media to Custom install Win7 to a second plugged primary formatted HDD. Unplug all other drives, run Upgrade disk from Vista to Custom install to the target drive, after install if you don't want dual boot then unplug the Vista drive and plug its cable into Win7 (or change boot order in BIOS), mark active and run Startup repair and you have Upgrade installed to formatted HDD. You can then plug your Vista drive back in to transfer data, or later even add it back to dual boot.

The other option is to copy Vista over to your new HDD, start the Upgrade install and do an in-place Upgrade which will reinstall all of your programs files, settings and files, or Custom clean install which will overwrite Vista and transfer files to windows.old for later redistribution.

gregrocker said:

You can use Upgrade media to Custom install Win7 to a second plugged primary formatted HDD. Unplug all other drives, run Upgrade disk from Vista to Custom install to the target drive, after install if you don't want dual boot then unplug the Vista drive and plug its cable into Win7 (or change boot order in BIOS), mark active and run Startup repair and you have Upgrade installed to formatted HDD. You can then plug your Vista drive back in to transfer data, or later even add it back to dual boot.

The other option is to copy Vista over to your new HDD, start the Upgrade install and do an in-place Upgrade which will reinstall all of your programs files, settings and files, or Custom clean install which will overwrite Vista and transfer files to windows.old for later redistribution.

Sounds easy enough good deal, thanks

Thanks Greg. But I'm moving up the version ladder from Vista Home Premium to W7 Pro and cannot do an in-place upgrade. It'll have to be a clean install.
But I like your idea of just putting my new drive in and copying everything over (hit me over the head with a hammer.) My primary concern is not losing data associated with various programs, and having easy access to it as I begin to reinstall them in W7. (i.e., I don't want to lose my rank in COD4.)
But back to the dual boot. This was going to be my original approach: custom install W7 Pro from within Vista Home Premium to the new D drive, which, from what I'm reading, will give me dual boot on the C boot sector. My only concern here is if C crashes; plus, from an earlier post on this, it seems clear I'd be violating the EULA to keep Vista running after installing W7 from an upgrade disk.

If you are going to copy your Vista over to the new drive, then you might at least try to do an in place upgrade since you are indeed upgrading OS's, to see if it will work which it may. You can always then do the Custom clean install, or copy Vista over again if you don't like performance. I know there is a fix to downgrade between versions, but haven't seen one for upgrading since that is the point and may be allowed anyway.

You are only using Vista after upgrade to copy files over to Win7. I do not see any way that your c: Vista drive could be harmed by any of this, but back up your files just to be sure. If you use the method to install from C; to D:, then switch the cables (or change D: in BIOS to boot first) after copying data over, mark D: active and run startup repair. Then you can plug VIsta drive back in to use as only a data drive , keeping the Vista on it only long enough to make sure you got all your files.

If you copy Vista over to the new drive for an overwrite Custom clean install, it will put your files in a windows.old folder for redistribution. But you will still have them backed up on your original C: vista drive.

Remember to image your finished installation with the great new Win7 imaging tool so that reinstalls will never again be necessary.