Installing Win7 on Dell - restrictions?

[piattj]

Hi

When Windows7 ships, I will be installing it on my laptop (Dell Latitude D631). This machine currently has Win XP Pro installed on a SATA HDD of 120Gb capacity.

My plan is to remove this disk & put it to one side, and install Win7 64bit on a brand new SATA HDD. I have bought a 500Gb WD drive and ideally plan to create 2 partitions - one for Windows, one for my data.

My questions are:

1. Any upfront advice on pitfalls of this approach?

2. Any knowledge (I can't specifically find any data on this, having trawled all sorts of places) of any drive capacity limitation for my Dell laptop - I have heard of 120 or 137 or other Gigabyte sizes as a limit so am now a little concerned that my lovely new 500Gb drive may not be fully usable.
If there's any inherent limitation, what's the way around this? Or will the BIOS 'autodetect' and see all 500Gb or is there something I need to do in BIOS or elsewhere to ensure the whole drive is visible and usable?

3. Finally...can I use the Win7 install process to create the 2 or even 3 partitions successfully?

Cheers. Thanks. Danke. Merci, etc !

 

[DeaconFrost]

1. I would make sure I have all the Windows 7 drivers on a flash drive first, and Vista ones if they aren't available as of yet.

2. I doubt there is a limit that low, because I have several D630s with 250 GB HDDs in them.

3. You can, but I wouldn't. Only worry about creating your system volume during the install process. Once that is done, and you are booting to Windows 7, use Disk Management to create the rest.

 

[TGSoldier]

I have had Vista Ultimate X64 on D630's and D631's...

I see no problem here.

 

[wallyinnc]

piattj, you might have already checked Dell's drivers, if not: Drivers & Downloads=
Latest BIOS is from 2008, so nothing very new. No Win7 drivers from Dell, you will have to use Vista's (and Win7 from manufacturers of whatever components if available)
There is a relatively new (Feb/09) SATA driver, you might want to check that.

 

[piattj]

Thanks everyone for the advice. Much appreciated...