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Post by aadave2 on Dec 8, 2009 11:56:41 GMT
Hi On one of my computers i want to load Windows 7 Upgrade ive cleared everthing off exept Windows XP operating system. But it WONT Let me Put anythging on it. I cant find my Original XP Disc! The hard drive is Partitioned into 2 = DriveC 14 Gig of which Win XP is On. And Drive D Which is completely clear as i formatted that 1 ok.. If i try to format Drive c it Comes up with (windows was unable to format) Cause if i try to Install Windows 7 it Says = Not enough space on C Drive as i say ive took EVERYTHING OFF exept XP But There is Only 4.1 Gig of Space and Instalation of Win 7 Says it NEEDS 5.7 of space.. Another bit says to "Change the Partition sizes" But i dont know how to do That. I have tried a thing called partition magic but all that allows is to make C Drive smaller But NOT Larger? Thanks. Dave
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Post by aadave2 on Dec 8, 2009 11:58:03 GMT
Sory forgot to say Drive partition has 60 Gig of space
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Post by ken on Dec 8, 2009 12:22:41 GMT
You need to delete your D: partition, then you can make C: bigger with your Partition Magic. Make C: about 30 gig and then format whats left of the free space as D: Once you have registered the new system, you can delete Windows Old from the C: The files are not any use to you, as you cant use anything off them. You will have to reinstall all your programs, as XP doesn't actually upgrade. Once its uncompressed and you reinstall your programs, you will find your operating system will be best part of 20 gig, without the Windows Old files. Make sure you register before deleting them. If you have to reinstall again from your disk, Windows 7 will use itself as a previous Windows installation and so once registered the old XP files become redundant.
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Post by ken on Dec 8, 2009 12:36:53 GMT
I should have explained, if you had files on D: you wanted to keep, you could shrink that enough to expand your C: You have to have free space to make a drive bigger otherwise you have to merge the 2 into one big drive. You can do that with files on both drives, it just takes a little bit of time if you have got files on both. In your case it preferable to keep 2 partitions though.
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Post by mikkh on Dec 8, 2009 20:38:12 GMT
Shrinking the D partition first does look the most sensible option. Then you should be able to expand C.
Get the Paragon Express freebie mentioned in 'useful utilities' though. Partition Magic ceased to be (magic) many years ago
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Post by nike on Dec 8, 2009 23:07:27 GMT
I would have thought that you could do all of that during the install of Windows 7. You can delete/change partitions etc during the install.
W7 will install over XP if you format the drive during the W7 installation. Windows will not let you format an active "C" drive.
You could then get rid of the second partition altogether if you wanted to, and make it the one drive. I'd install a second hard drive as data backup myself, I hate partitions !!!
You would need to make your Rom drive the first boot, and have the W7 disc in the drawer on boot up.
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Post by ken on Dec 9, 2009 0:24:38 GMT
An Upgrade disk wont onerwrite a previous Windows XP installation Kev, it keeps the files as Windows Old as part of the upgrading ritual.
I have to agree on not using partitions, except on a laptop. As the computer is being upgraded anyway it would make sense to upgrade the hardware as well. Another hard drive wouldn't cost much. A computer can read and write faster between 2 hard drives than it can between 2 partitions.
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Post by nike on Dec 9, 2009 2:18:07 GMT
I can't for the life of me understand this stuff about an "Upgrade Disc". As all W7 installation discs have exactly the same data included to do an installation to any version of W7 right up to Ultimate if the key is right. Every W7 disc is the same, including the "Upgrade". It's only the keys that differ to unlock certain sections of the disc.
If you ever want to upgrade your W7 install from say, Home Basic to Pro, then you just have to buy a new key from M$, and use the same disc that you were provided with for Home basic...
They only call it an upgrade disc and provide a key just to do an upgrade. If it was me, i'd just buy the Home premium edition and get the right key for it inststead of wasting time with an upgrade.
As we all should know by now, W7 will not upgrade over XP. You have to do a clean install of W7 in that case, which formats the hard drive and gets rid of XP in the process. W7 will only upgrade Vista, and that will leave a Windows.old file...
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Post by ken on Dec 9, 2009 3:44:02 GMT
I tried to do a clean install over XP and still finished up with Windows Old Kev. I reinstalled after using Paragon to Format the drive from a disk at bootup. Thats the only way I could get it to install on a clean drive. If theres a way of formatting using the disk, I haven't found it yet. Is it in the repair section of the installation??? You dont need the disk to upgrade from Home, all the files are on the hard drive and all you need is the new number from M$. Thats why there is very little difference in the size of the Windows files between Home and Ultimate. I was looking at the Technet download sizes and Home and Ultimate are the same size and Pro is slightly smaller. The Beast was upgraded from Home to Ultimate, after I had installed the programs onto Home that I couldn't get to install on Ultimate. I just put one of my Technet Ultimate numbers in to upgrade and away it went without a disk and in 10 minutes I had Ultimate fully installed with the programs. It would be better if you did use the disk, coz it means that Home users are running with a directory much bigger than it needs to be.
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Post by mikkh on Dec 9, 2009 8:18:37 GMT
When you pick the partition to install on there's an 'Advanced' option You can format from there
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Post by ken on Dec 9, 2009 16:30:46 GMT
OK Mikk, thanks mate. I thought it was odd that there wouldn't be a way to do it. I've got used to using Paragon to sort my drives out before installing anyway, so its not something I really needed to look for.
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Post by nike on Dec 9, 2009 20:44:50 GMT
Keerect Mikkh. I wasn't able to get back to answer KC before this, but there is the option to delete partitions, format, and create partitions etc in the advanced options menu.
That way, you can wipe out XP totally and do a full clean install of W7 with no windows.old garbage.
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