Windows 10: New W10 Hard Drive advice, keeping W7 HD available ?

Hi.
I have W7 64 bit running on a WD 3.5” 500gb SATA internal drive, 5400RPM with 32MB Buffer, I wish to keep this drive and all its information available after a clean install of W10 64bit.

I have now purchased a new WD 1TB SATA drive, 7200RPM with 64MB buffer, on this drive I intend to put a clean install of W10 64bit. As I know from past problems there will always be problems with missing drivers etc when installing programs onto a new system, This is why I want my W7 drive available so I can copy information across if needed. However with MS licence rules I cannot have both W7 and W10 running together (Unless I want to purchase a new W10 Pro, which I don’t). I was not sure of my best options *Confused, but I was sure where to ask! *Wink

Not very knowledgeable on this but would it best to Copy my whole W7 drive to a spare HD partition? I have two external HD’s with plenty of space that I copy it to. Or, - and this may be a stupid idea but ignorance is bliss as they say – I noted, (when I formatted and partitioned into two 500GB drives on my old XP machine in readiness to install on my W7 PC) it needed to be ‘Activated’ in order to make it boot-able, so would changing my W7 HD to ‘Un-activated’ mean it would no longer boot and so I could leave it in place? Would this work in reverse if I wanted to go back to W7?

I guess life is never that easy though!

Your suggestions would be appreciated, I would also prefer to keep it as simple as possible. I have Partition Wizard to copy it, or is there something better, if so what? Should the destination partition be Logical or Primary? does it matter? That sort of thing would be a great help.

Many thanks.

:)

 

My Hard Drive With Windows 10 died. How can/should I reinstall it?

Syed, if your old hard drive was upgraded from W7 to W10, there is usually a partition that has the old OS available if you want to roll back. Microsoft doesn't want you to do that (of course), as they're invested in W10.

If you've installed a new HD, then you're probably SOL for an easy way to install W7. I you can slot 2 HD's into your PC, try making the old HD the slave drive and if you may be able to roll back to W7 by finding that partition in the old drive. If not,
try to find a disc with a legitimate copy of W7, re-format your new HD and install W7 then. Good luck.

 

Windows 10 - Install to new hard drive possible

While it is possible to install a new hard drive and then install W10 on it, it takes a little effort PRIOR to removal of old HD. You have to install the upgrade on the old HD, then make an installation disk. After that you remove the old hard drive, install
the new one and run the install of W10 off of the created recovery disk from the old hard drive. Now, while it sounds like a lot of work, it really isnt BUT the old Win 7 or 8 will still be on the new drive as an xxx.OLD windows version. I dont know if this
is still operational, but I do know that W10 refers to the old Windows Key when installation is started. Therefore, while you may install it on the new HD as a "new install" in reality it is still the UPGRADED version of W7 or 8...

If you really want to get the HD clear of all the old **** that W7 or 8 installed, purchase a clean OEM version and install it yourself. No support from Microsoft, but with all the forums out there, do you really want them telling you what to do? The public
is usually the better choice as they have experienced most, if not all, of the pitfalls of installation and every conceivable hardware configuration. Good luck. You can get an OEM copy of W10 for under $100.00, so is it worth it? Your call...

Best...

PS... The method below does install a new copy of Windows, BUT it does not remove the old file structure. W10 is built on W7-8 and needs this to run. You cannot run from a DOS prompt, unless you do the procedure above which still registers the new W10
with the old W7-8 software key. Try it...you will see I know of what I say.

 

Firstly you need to do an upgrade first if you don't want to buy a new license (unless you want to do this Why Activate? - Windows 10 Forums which will let you do a clean install without upgrading first).

So you could image your 7 drive to your new drive and upgrade it - leaving your old 7 drive as it is or clean install on your new drive leaving your 7 drive as it is.

Once you have 10 running you can connect your 7 HD and copy what you want. You aren't running 7 - just seeing it as an external drive so there are no issues of running 2 copies.

 

You should probably get the idea of "copy" out of your head---depending on exactly what you have in mind.

You say "copy information across". Can I assume you are referring to your Windows installation per se as opposed to personal data files such as pictures, videos, bookmarks, email, mp3s, letters you wrote to grandma, uninstalled versions of programs, etc?

If you want to be able to revert to your Win 7 installation indefinitely into the future, you should think in terms of "imaging" the current Win 7 installation. Imaging makes a file that by itself isn't of much use until it is "restored", at which point the drive to which it is "restored" becomes bootable. Various applications can do that.

The standard idea would be to make an image (file) and store it on one of your external drives for later restoration if needed. Treat the image file like any other valuable piece of data---back it up, protect it generally, etc. With luck you never need to restore it.

You should be able to put your existing Win 7 drive in the closet, do a clean install of Win 7 on your new drive, upgrade the new drive to Win 10, and then do a clean install of Win 10 on the new drive--------if you have a Win 7 install disc or have access to a Win 7 ISO, along with a valid Win 7 Product Key. Or do you have other plans for your existing WD 500 GB drive?

Partition Wizard is a fine tool, but it's not suitable for what I think you have in mind.

If you image, you don't need to make any more partitions. The image file is just a file like any other. You can store it wherever it will fit, perhaps in a folder called "images".

You need to provide more clarification on what you want to do. I wouldn't think "copying" anything from a Win 7 install to a Win 10 install makes much sense, unless you are referring to personal data of some type.

 

Thank you for your replies, clarification would help!
So, I did upgrade to W10 over my existing W7, I found problems with W10 Taskbar with icons failing to launch and other small niggles, I did activate W10 and this was registered so I would not need to reinstall W7 Pro and can do a straight Clean Install of W10 from an ISO or Creative Media Tool?

I have a retail copy of W7 64 Pro with product key.

Reading on this forum and others it would seem that a W10 clean install is more reliable than an upgraded W7~W10 install, true or not I cannot say, only that this seems the best way to do it. And after my experience I hope it will be so.

I have all my 'data' on separate external drives or backed up to external drives, my W7 is an internal drive. I will take an image but of course that has to be restored as a whole, what I am meaning and obviously did not explain clearly, is that there may be files on my W7 HD that may be needed when I re-install some of my programs later. I remember terrible times upgrading from W95~98 and installing some programs where there were lots of "Cannot find ****** (file/Driver/inf/?) error messages and then searching high and low for them.

Halasz said:

So, by the above I should disconnect my W7 HD, then install my new W10 - which has already been activated with my system specs - to my new HD . Then reconnect my W7 HD after the new W10 install so that all files etc on the W7 HD will be available should they be needed. Once W10 is fully set up as I want and loaded with my programs, take an image of that for future use. Yes?

I have no plans for my existing W7 HD, it can happily remain as it is until I decide I to wipe it in a year or so's time when W10 is running perfectly (He hopes!)

ignatzatsonic said:

From my post above what would you recommend? If I need anything at all that is......

Apologies for being a bit slow but I would rather take it slow and make sure I understand what I am doing rather than screw it up altogether.....

 

Yes exactly. Just take out the old drive, put in the new and do a clean install from USB/DVD. Don't enter any key during the installation - you are already activated. When 10 is to you liking make an image. Macrium Reflect Free is a good tool but there are plenty. You needn't image 7 as you are keeping the drive as is.

If you want you can copy things from the old drive later (although you shouldn't need any drivers like before) and should you want to go back to seven just swap the drives around again - i.e. take out 10 and put in 7.

 

wrote:

Looks like it could be after all *Biggrin.

Thanks halasz, that's brilliant, never thought for one moment it could be that simple *Party.