Query about installing Windows 7 on D drive


  1. SpikeKun
    Posts : 6
    XP
       New #1

    Query about installing Windows 7 on D drive


    Hello. I want to apologize first, for asking a question that may seem rather simple and silly to some. I'm not very technologically advanced so decided to ask before doing anything myself.

    I have a 320 gb hardrive which is split into 2 partitions at the moment, C and D. Unfortunately, my C drive, which has Windows XP installed on it at the moment, is only 15gb. I know I need atleast 20GB for a Windows 7 64-bit installation.

    As I don't have access to another drive or a large enough USB to back my files up in at the moment, I was wondering if I should just follow the guide here and install Windows 7 in my D drive instead. The thing I wanted to confirm was this:

    I read in this thread that if I install Windows 7 on D drive, it'll read the drive it is installed on as C. Is that true? Because I was wondering if I could just install Windows 7 in D drive and then format C which has XP in it (but none of my data). Then I could rename the blank drive to D. Is this scenario possible? To cut a long story short, I want to install Windows 7 on my PC, get rid of XP, but my C drive is only 15gb and my D drive has all my data (movies, pictures, documents etc) in it.

    Thanks in advance!
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  3. Zen00
    Posts : 1,360
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       New #2

    The thing I would suggest is this.

    1. Go buy a external backup drive. They're cheap, and everyone needs one. Trust me, it'll save your bacon one day.
    2. Copy all your data on to that backup drive.
    3. Install Windows 7 and use the custom install option to format all the drives.
    4. Repartition your drives after the install to whatever sizes you need, I suggest 60 and 240.
    5. Recopy your data to the main drive, so you have it in two places. In case one backup fails.

    Tada!
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  4. Lee
    Posts : 1,796
    Win 7 Pro x64, VM Win XP, Win7 Pro Sandbox, Kubuntu 11
       New #3

    Great advise Zen on the backup drive.

    SpikeKun, Welcome to the "Seven Forums."

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  6. bigmck
    Posts : 4,751
    Windows 7 Home Premium 32-Bit - Build 7600 SP1
       New #4

    Zen00 said:
    The thing I would suggest is this.

    1. Go buy a external backup drive. They're cheap, and everyone needs one. Trust me, it'll save your bacon one day.
    2. Copy all your data on to that backup drive.
    3. Install Windows 7 and use the custom install option to format all the drives.
    4. Repartition your drives after the install to whatever sizes you need, I suggest 60 and 240.
    5. Recopy your data to the main drive, so you have it in two places. In case one backup fails.

    Tada!
    I have the same situation with my C and D drives. The XP restore files are on D. I was just going to make the whole HD my C and put Windows 7 on. Why do I need to have a small D drive as you suggested above? Thanks,
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  7. SpikeKun
    Posts : 6
    XP
    Thread Starter
       New #5

    Ok, but besides getting a backup drive, I was just wondering what other options were. IS it possible to do what I asked though? As in install Windows 7 on D, which would make it the C drive by default and then formatting the original C to make it D?
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  8. Zen00
    Posts : 1,360
    Windows 7 Ultimate x64
       New #6

    bigmck: When I gave suggestions, I meant C: being 60gb.

    Anyways, the partitions don't matter very much unless you're running in a multiple drive system. They just help prevent fragmentation.

    SpikeKun: I think you can install Windows 7 on the D:, and then you can edit its master boot record so it will read the D: as the D: instead of the C:. I'd back up first just in case, so I don't run the risk of loosing the data in the install.
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