clean install without voiding my product key

A year ago I bought an HP with factory installed 64 bit vista. I had nothing but problems with it. When 7 came out I ordered an upgrade copy. After doing an upgade install not only did some problems remain but I got even more. Over the past 3 months I've spent so many hours on the phone with tech support it adds up to between 2+3 days. I've let them take over my computer at least a dozen times with no help. I reinstalled the upgrade no help.They finally told me to do a clean install,that didn't help either. Now I want to do a clean install on a new hard drive so I don't have to deal with any scrap of vista still left. How can I do that without voiding my product key?

Hi slecks,

Your post is quite informative.

You were having unspecified issues - which you not unnaturally assumed were due to the o/s ( Vista).

However , you did a clean install of 7 ( that does remove all traces of Vista) - yet you still suffer from unspecified issues.

Clearly the issue was not Vista itself - but something else.

If you want to reinstall 7 -this time on a new HD - that shouldn't be a problem - it is the same machine and the upgrade key should activate fine.

If your clean reinstall of 7 on the new HD does not result in the previous issues, then it indicates it was the change of HD - not the change of o/s - which resolved the problems.

i personnally would go along with SIW2's answer ,the problem lies elsewhere, more likely to be hardware related ,could you please give a little more info on the problems

did the OP run the Win 7 upgrade advisor before attempting upgrade? Kinda smells like a possible HW problem if both VISTA and Win 7 wont work as expected.

What is the full spec of the laptop?

FWIW you can actually do a clean install on to a new HDD with no OS with the upgrade DVD

Slecks:

Do you have any evidence of a bad hard drive?

Have you downloaded and run the HD manufacturer's disk utilities to confirm it is OK or not OK?

I hate to see you go to the expense of a new hard drive based only on rank speculation that it is defective.

Try Greg's method in post 7. If that fails, I would run the disk utilities.

I think you have to type "exit" immediately after "format"?

Thanks for all the input about my problem. I'm going to follow the instructions posted, and do a clean install on a new hard drive.FYI after I first upgraded to 7, I couldn't record TV programs on my computer any more. I was using it as a DVR. After countless hours with tech support we found out that the computer loses the TV signal if it goes to sleep,and the only way to get it back, is to reboot. If the computer went to sleep the computer would record at the assigned time + length,but it would record a white screen.Tech support could never fix this problem,so I can't let the computer go to sleep if I have it set to record. After doing a clean install over vista I lost my broadband connection. The computer would still connect wirelessly but was a lot slower. After 5 hrs with tech sup they finally managed to get my broadband (sort of). About 30% of the time ,when I boot up, internet conn isn't there and I get the 651 error. To get the conn back I cold boot, sometimes up to 5 times. The other big problem I've had is the comp no longer recognizes the external hard drive through the fire wire port,only through the the USB port. Since this is where I backed everything,that's a big pain because USB is so much slower. Once again tech sup threw up there hands and said they couldn't fix it. More wasted hours. Western digital couldn't help either even though the hard drive is still under warranty. There have been numerous other little problems that come and go. I've checked the hard drive and all the drivers everything always cks good and drivers are all up to date. That's why I've come to the conclusion that the o/s on this hard drive is unstable for some reason, and I need to try a clean install on a new hard drive. Once again, thanks for all the support.