Installing Windows 7 on 80 GB Hard drive

[CommandoBob]

Well my old hard drive with 750 GB burned down. So i took out a other hard drive with 80 GB. I am currently running on Windows XP. And i was thinking to re-install Windows 7. Is it ok to install it on 80 GB? Or will it have performance issues?

Check systems specs for more information.

NOTE: Hard Drive is not SATA or PATA. Its IDE

 

[ryo]

yap that's ok..for the hard disc 80Gb, more important for install windows 7 i think is memory but your memory is 2Gb. that's should ok.
and you can check this Windows 7 system requirements - Microsoft Windows

 

[gregrocker]

No reason not to try it. Depends of course on how many programs and User files you have.

When you get ahold of second HD, you can move your User folders to it for faster reads from a second laser, to protect your files from OS failure and free up space on OS drive.

Here's a video and tutorial on how it's done:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/72427-data-partition.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html

 

[CommandoBob]

No reason not to try it. Depends of course on how many programs and User files you have.

When you get ahold of second HD, you can move your User folders to it for faster reads from a second laser, to free up space and protect your files from OS failure.

Here's a video and tutorial on how it's done:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/72427-data-partition.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html

Thanks for the answers, i am still waiting for more people to respond.

 

[solarmystic]

I've a secondary desktop PC at home that comes from the 2004 Pentium 4 era that has an 80 GB drive on a SATA 150 connection. Partitioned it to 20 and 60GiBis respectively, installed Windows 7 Pro x32 on the 1st partition, and it flies. RAM usage is surprisingly low. (Only takes up 400-450MBs of RAM at bootup from the 2GB resevoir)

 

[bigmck]

Just be aware that Win 7 is going to take up over 50% of the 80 GB. It will not leave much room for anything else. If I were doing it, I would use the 80 GB drive for ONLY Win 7 and get a much bigger drive for all of your programs. It will be much easier that way than moving them later.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'd guess that the biggest problem is that the 80 GB drive is probably old--at least 3 years, maybe 5 years.

If that is the case, it is simply going to be slower than a modern drive and performance probably won't be what you expect. Other than that, the size is fine. If it happens to be a modern 80 GB drive, it shouldn't have a performance hit.

A bare installation of Windows 7 Home Premium takes under 10 GB. Fully updated and with a few applications it might take 20 GB. You shouldn't have any space issues.

 

[DocBrown]

I have installed win7 ultimate on 2 different old Dinosaurs with 40gb IDE HD's with still 50% free space. They are real slow but they work

So if your CPU is reasonably fast & enough RAM memory, it should work ok!

 

[kodi]

Your drive will do the job.
Everybody wants to drive a Ferrari at 150mph these days.
Just sit back and relax in your Ford/Chev at 60mph and enjoy the scenery

 

[gregrocker]

I always run maker's full diag/repair CD scan on old HDD's before reinstall: Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp.

Then zero the HD using the same CD or this way: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html

 

[esha]

I've Win 7 Professional plus several big programs, and it's currently using 42.7 GB of my HD space on C:\. But I have all my files, photos etc. on another HD.
If you're going to work with image editors or music or video files you'll certainly need a bigger HD for the data. But I'm sure you know that already

 

[CommandoBob]

I've Win 7 Professional plus several big programs, and it's currently using 42.7 GB of my HD space on C:\. But I have all my files, photos etc. on another HD.
If you're going to work with image editors or music or video files you'll certainly need a bigger HD for the data. But I'm sure you know that already

I mostly use this PC for games. I doubt it will have enough space for all of them.

 

[EpicThorn]

One of my test machines currently has an 80Gig HDD. Windows 7 HP is installed with Office 2010, WoW and a bunch of learning games for my kids. 80Gig will do you fine until you can get a bigger HDD.
Try using nLite to make the overall footprint of the OS install smaller.

Regards,
Thorn

 

[profdlp]

Most people running off a SSD (except for the very wealthy!) are limited to a drive about that size and do just fine. (My Intel SSD is also 80GB.)

As others have mentioned, that doesn't leave a whole lot of room for gobs of data. It will get you started. I'm assuming the reason you haven't replaced the 750GB drive that croaked is that you either don't have the dough right now or that this is secondary computer for casual use. Either way, you can get started now and image it over to a new larger drive if and when you can.