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  1. #1

    Installing Win7 on new Hard Drive

    I'm currently running my PC on a single HD with Windows Vista- OS, programs, games, music, pictures, etc all on the same hard drive, and I've recently obtained a copy of Win7 and am looking to upgrade to that. However, I don't have a flash drive, and I'm really not wanting to burn 200-300gb worth of stuff I want to keep onto DVD's- could take a while. I do have another SATA drive, and what I'm considering doing is installing Win7 to that and using it as my OS drive while keeping all my games/pictures/whathaveyou on my current hard drive, both giving me the performance of a dual-HD setup (while keeping my OS on a completely different drive) as well as saving me the time (and money, I guess) of backing everything up and doing a total reformat.

    The question I have, having never done this, is what exactly I need to do in order to install 7 on this new hard drive (as I don't want to wipe my current one before doing so) and how booting an OS would work after that; do I remove Vista from my current HD? Will it give me a selection of OS when booting up? I don't really need the choice- I don't see myself using Vista anymore once I have 7 installed. I'm just not sure the best route to go about doing this- anyone with more experience have some advice / infos? Any help appreciated-

  2. #2
    E. Body
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    To install 7 on the new hard drive, there'll be options during the setup for the drive/partition selection of which you want to install 7 onto. Just pick the new hard drive and format if you wish (might as well if there's nothing on it and don't format the wrong drive lol). If you want, you can dual boot, but if you don't need to, don't worry about it. If you have both harddrives plugged in, it'll create a bootmenu, but you can later set it to not show up. Before doing this, you might want to set it in your BIOS to have your SATA drive boot up as first priority, doing this should change the drive letters so the new SATA drive will be C:

    Once you have 7 installed, you can simply delete the folders from the vista-drive: windows, program files. Might want to sift through some of the data in Users to save bookmarks, My documents folders, anything on the desktop, etc. Go into Advanced System Settings, Advanced tab, Startup and Recovery-Settings button, and then you can set the "Time to display list of operating systems" to 0, removing the bootmenu. If you have any issues deleting vista folders, you might need to take ownership of the folders by rightclicking it.

  3. #3

    If I set my new OS drive to C:, what will that do for my file structure for everything on the 'old' C (that'll now be a different letter)?

  4. #4
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    It shouldn't be relevant unless you're going to be using Vista. Like, the file structure will still be intact, just a different letter, D, E, F but you won't be using any shortcuts that would require that drive to be C since it's a fresh OS install. If you're going to dual boot both OS's though, I think there's a way to have the "first" drive rotate so whichever you boot to, becomes C:

  5. #5
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    The way to do that is simple, only have the hard drive you are installing to plugged in while the install is running. It's hard to change the OS drive letter after the OS is installed, because the drive will always be in use. If you install in the first place so that is the main drive, it will become C while in that OS, and a different letter while booted to the other OS, because drive letter assignments are stored in the registry for that OS.

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