Installing Win7 on a secondary drive

[Stewie]

I'm currently using a laptop that has two harddrives (C and D). I currently have Windows XP installed on my C drive and wish to upgrade to Windows 7, however, I do not want to go through the pain of reformatting that drive and reinstalling all my programs, so is there some way I can install Windows 7 on my D drive, but without having to clear my C drive?

 

[Zen00]

I believe that when you start the installation process, you can choose which drive it will install to, but it might have to be the one where XP is installed if it's only an upgrade version.

 

[Zardoc]

I wouldn't. Not on a laptop. Not with the same hard drive.

I did this with my desktop. Unplugged drives and created a bios boot of Win 7 on another drive. I hate dual OS boots.

 

[Stewie]

So you would suggest, then, backing up everything and installing it to the C drive?

Just to be clear: I am not looking for a dual boot, just a way to avoid reformatting.

 

[gregrocker]

MS Technet has verified today that you can clean install Win7 upgrade to a Primary formatted second hard drive. No other drives should be attached. After upgrade, remove XP/Vista/RC* drive and plug Win7 upgraded drive into it. If bootloader lands on first drive, run startup repair.

*MS has announced you can upgrade RC, but be sure to make an image backup since otherwise you will need XP/Vista for any reinstalls needed after RC expires.

 

[SIW2]

Hi greg,

Did MS say "bootloader"?

 

[sup3rsprt]

I do not want to go through the pain of ... reinstalling all my programs

You don't have much of a choice, because you can't do an in-place upgrade from XP to 7. You will have to reinstall your programs.

 

[Dave76]

MS Technet has verified today that you can clean install Win7 upgrade to a Primary formatted second hard drive. No other drives should be attached. After upgrade, remove XP/Vista/RC* drive and plug Win7 upgraded drive into it. If bootloader lands on first drive, run startup repair.

*MS has announced you can upgrade RC, but be sure to make an image backup since otherwise you will need XP/Vista for any reinstalls needed after RC expires.

Hi greg,

Did MS say "bootloader"?

SIW2,
Congrats on the 2K posts, another Golden one


greg,
I've been seeing hints of this but, haven't seen it on TechNet, that's good news.

 

[Stewie]

MS Technet has verified today that you can clean install Win7 upgrade to a Primary formatted second hard drive. No other drives should be attached. After upgrade, remove XP/Vista/RC* drive and plug Win7 upgraded drive into it. If bootloader lands on first drive, run startup repair.

*MS has announced you can upgrade RC, but be sure to make an image backup since otherwise you will need XP/Vista for any reinstalls needed after RC expires.

Unfortunately both are internal so I do not believe this is an option in my case.

I do not want to go through the pain of ... reinstalling all my programs

You don't have much of a choice, because you can't do an in-place upgrade from XP to 7. You will have to reinstall your programs.

Darn. Oh well.

Thanks for the help guys, guess I'll find some boring long weekend to upgrade my computer!

 

[gregrocker]

MS Technet has verified today that you can clean install Win7 upgrade to a Primary formatted second hard drive. No other drives should be attached. After upgrade, remove XP/Vista/RC* drive and plug Win7 upgraded drive into it. If bootloader lands on first drive, run startup repair.

*MS has announced you can upgrade RC, but be sure to make an image backup since otherwise you will need XP/Vista for any reinstalls needed after RC expires.

Unfortunately both are internal so I do not believe this is an option in my case.

Stewie I am referring to two internal HDD's. Win7 upgrade cannot be installed to/from an external drive anyway.

The boot drive should contain the activated Vista/XP/RC you want to upgrade. unplug all but that and the target HDD which you can format Primary for the cleanest possible upgrade install.

Start the upgrade from the first drive, install to the second one. Afterwards unplug the first drive (which will have had the boot installed on it) and plug it's cable into the second one, otherwise change the target drive to boot in BIOS. If it fails to boot up, boot into the Win7 installer and run Startup Repair at least once.

Save either the first HDD or an image in case you need it to reinstall the upgrade. But by making an image of the finished Upgrade, you may never have to reinstall again.

 

[gregrocker]

Hi greg,

Did MS say "bootloader"?

I was paraphrasing there. The Technet discussion was about the boot file being on the XP/Vista/RC drive after upgrade, and how to get it sorted out so the target second HDD would boot.

Wouldn't it be as simple as marking the target drive active and running Startup repair on it?

I believe the suggestion to switch the cable was because that would be the drive that was set to boot in the BIOS, but couldn't that be remedied by a BIOS edit for those who dont' have easy access to their drives.