Possible workaround for installation and removing XP during 7 install

Hello there!

So I'm just another XP refugee, so here's a little backstory.

Old IBM ThinkCentre S50 I'm using is okay for 7- except for the GPU. It's a Intel 82865G, meaning it requires an XPDM driver to function in 7, also meaning it'll use the horrible Windows 7 Starter Theme. I'm okay with that.

Thing is, my DVD drive's busted. My computer doesn't have support for booting off USB's (other posts on Lenovo's forums shows that updating the BIOS does nothing), so now I'm stuck with a workaround involving booting off a floppy with PLoP on it, and then PLoP redirecting my PC to boot off the USB.

Now, back to my XP install. I'm going to be backing everything up to my laptop, but I'm not too sure if I can get it back to even 12GB free space. I do not particularly care for anything else on the computer other than anything in My Documents and a few programs. The rest is just large leftovers from uninstalled programs over the years (looking at you, Autodesk).

I've thought, why not just format the hard drive during the 7 install? Well, there's obviously the Master Boot Record and I'm not too sure what will be the outcome of it as a result of my actions. Will it get corrupted? I'm not really sure.

Thanks a lot! :)

Have you tried running the Win7 installer from XP to overwrite C, or shrink C in advance to do a Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP ?

Later we can help you remove XP or you can simply overwrite it by choosing C for install which will pack the old XP install into a C:/Windows.old archive you can delete later using Disk Cleanup>System files.

I haven't really carried on with doing any install, but right now it seems as after a little reading around here, I'll be mounting the Win7 ISO to my XP C:\, which I believe will overwrite the entire hard drive during the install? (I'm okay with that, just wanna make sure it'll overwrite everything and leave a clean and spacey hard drive.)

You can also try running the Win7 disk from C to overwrite C. Again, afterwards there will be a windows.old folder with the whole XP install packed into to so you can retrieve anything you forgot and then delete it using Disk Cleanup>System Files.

Nice. Thanks for the quick answers Greg!