in that case you should be ok.
but i'm just being ultra-cautious.
my new-and-improved buy-one-get-one-free advice is to keep this 10gig partition for now, go ahead and install 7 into the other 100 gigs, and then if all is rosy, you can delete the dell recovery partition later, but only once you've established that all is groovy in the land of 7.
Mickey, I like your last post.
Welcome to Seven Forums eldraw44,
I would also recommend to keep the Dell recovery partition.
Your Dell re-installation DVDs can be used instead of the recovery partition, it's still best to keep them both.
In Dells Hardware Warranty small print, they can ask you to re-install the original OS, Vista, for any warranty issues. Or if you ever decide to sell the laptop you can put Vista back on it.
Good job running the Microsoft Windows 7 Upgrade Advisor, it will find any issues hiding and waiting for you.
Do you have all the files you want to keep backed up?
I would just use your 100MB partition for the install.
A Clean install is the best way, good choice.
I would recommend using a USB Memory key instead of burning to DVD, we've seen a lot of issues with burning. If you do burn to DVD, burn at the slowest possible speed, x2 or x4. Faster speed results in errors and failed installations.
USB Windows 7 Installation Key Drive - Create
This Seven Forums tutorial will help you, Clean Installation with Windows 7.
You might want to try Windows Easy Transfer - Transfer To & From Computers, it will restore all your user settings. You will still have to install all the programs. It makes the process a little easier.
For more tutorials on Win7 installation: Tutorial quick reference list for Installing Windows 7
Let us know how it goes.
Installed windows 7 with no problems, thanks for all your help.
Should i go ahead now and delete the partition? If so how would i go about doing this?
thanks
Last edited by eldraw44; 02 Jan 2022 at 09:08.
good news - i didn't think there would be a problem, but a faint chance did exist.
anyway, you need to read a few tutorials.
first you need to delete your old dell partition.
then you've got 10 gigs of free space...
...you can either extend your windows partition to absorb emptiness, or make a new partition and start saving data to it (or maybe you already use an external drive for data storage?)
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