Solved Re-installing Windows 7 on old computer

[flakes]

My house mate for some stupid reason, ignored all my advice and, went to a pawn shop and bought an old dell computer. When he brought it home and I had set it up we discovered that the hard drive works only intermittently.

I went out and bought a brand new hard drive (mail order). When it gets here I want to install Windows 7 on it. I figure since it is a Dell Machine, and has the Windows serial number on a sticker on top of it, this shouldn't be a problem.

But I am a little worried. My own computer is a Mac. I have Windows 7 installed on this machine in a partition. But mine is probably a much more recent version of Windows 7 (service pack 2 or later, I think--I bought it less than a year ago). His is service pack 1. Mine is 64bit. His I don't know. Thankfully we both have "Home Premium" so that won't be an issue.

My question is this:

Can I use my install disk coupled with his serial number to re-install his Windows system? If I can't, where can I get a copy of an install disk?

At this point, I don't want to have to buy another copy of Windows since I don't want to spend a lot of money on this project and I don't know my housemate well enough to know if he will pay me back even for my out of pocket purchase of a new hard drive. Or should I just install linux on it and tell him to "learn a new OS"

 

[Dude]

Flakes, welcome to the forums. have a read here
:ar: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html

 

[gregrocker]

Everything you need is in the blue link Dude posted above.

Make sure the Product Key on COA sticker is readable and you use the same version. For less than 4gb RAM I would use 32 bit, but I'd first look at the drivers avaialble on the Dell Support Downloads webpage for the model to see which they support - even though drivers can always be found.

 

[flakes]

Thanks all

 

[Dude]

Thanks all

You're welcome. Greg is spot on in his tutorial