Wiping hard-drive and installing W7..

Mark200

So I have Windows XP and Ubuntu on dual-boot on my laptop. I want to upgrade to Windows 7, and I've been told that a clean install is easier and better than trying to upgrade. An upgrade or clean install would both mess up my Ubuntu partition so I'm planning on just wiping my hard-drive (after backing up all my files on an external hard-drive) and then installing Windows 7 followed by Ubuntu.

So my question is, would this work? How exactly do I wipe my hard-drive of all my files and stuff? I'm just hoping to put Windows 7 on a CD (when it's finished downloading), get rid of all my files and Operating Systems off my laptop and then install Windows 7 from the CD.

Fysh

I would suggest the following:

• Go here (Microsoft website) and download the XP-to-Win7 version of the Windows Easy Transfer Client. Install it.
• Run through the Easy Transfer Client to migrate your profile settings and files to a migration file (I usually save the migration on the local disk, then transfer it to an external drive once it's done - it's usually a bit faster than trying to do the migration straight to the external drive).
• Check your installed applications and make sure you've got install media & serial numbers for them.
• If your computer has a Seagate or Maxtor hard drive, go to the Seagate site and download either DiscWizard (Seagate) or MaxBlast (Maxtor). If you have a Western Digital drive, go here and check if it entitles you to use the Acronis True Image WD Edition. Once you have downloaded the relevant software, burn it to CD, boot from it and use it to create a backup image of your entire XP install to an external drive.
• Download and burn a copy of GParted to CD.
• Boot from the GParted CD and delete the partitions on your existing drive. If you want, you can also create the new partitions you'll use for Win7 & Ubuntu in GParted.
• Insert your Windows 7 disc and run through the installation process as normal. Note that if you've got Windows 7 Upgrade media, you'll have to do a clean install from disc, boot into Win7 and start an upgrade install from within the OS and finish the install a second time before you'll be able to activate using your Upgrade product key.
• Once you have all your applications installed, open up Windows Easy Transfer and import your migrated profile.
• Install Ubuntu as normal

It's a little more involved than your suggested process, but it lets you keep your XP working environment and allows you to take a backup image in case everything goes pearshaped.

Mark200

Cool I'll do that. Although I'm not all that worried about keeping file structures... I'm sure I could just copy my files back over from an external hard-drive with ease... I've only two or three main folders that hold all my stuff.


One more question, is it possible to install from a memory stick with an ISO instead of a CD? Just realised the Windows 7 ISO is over 2GB and I don't have any CDs that big.

Fysh

Mark200 wrote: »

One more question, is it possible to install from a memory stick with an ISO instead of a CD? Just realised the Windows 7 ISO is over 2GB and I don't have any CDs that big.

Yep, you can do - see this Technet page for instructions on how to go about it.

Edited to add:

If you've downloaded an ISO of the Windows 7 media, you'll need to mount it so that you can copy its contents to the pendrive. You can do this on XP using the Microsoft Virtual CD Control Panel (Microsoft.com download link here) or on Vista using Virtual Clone Drive (download here).

Mark200

Fysh wrote: »

[*]If your computer has a Seagate or Maxtor hard drive, go to the Seagate site and download either DiscWizard (Seagate) or MaxBlast (Maxtor). If you have a Western Digital drive, go here and check if it entitles you to use the Acronis True Image WD Edition. Once you have downloaded the relevant software, burn it to CD, boot from it and use it to create a backup image of your entire XP install to an external drive.

I just realised I have a fujitsu hard-drive! So I guess I'll ignore this step?

Fysh

Mark200 wrote: »

I just realised I have a fujitsu hard-drive! So I guess I'll ignore this step?

Yeah, you can skip it in that case.

If you're keen on backing up your XP install in case things don't work, you can either check out the Fujitsu Siemens support page here and see if there are any suitable downloads for your laptop, or you can investigate the likes of DriveImage XML (download here).

Mark200

Ok one very last question! When using gparted, I assume I should delete all partitions? So everything should say 'unallocated' in the table? Or should I just delete the Ubuntu partition?


Sorry for all the questions! I'm actually pretty good with computers, I've just never installed an OS over other OS's before so I don't want to screw it up!

Fysh

You're as well deleting them all - you could try deleting them from within the Windows 7 installer instead, but this way you make sure there's no trace of your old XP install in your new Windows 7 setup.

xsiborg

If you've downloaded an ISO of the Windows 7 media, you'll need to mount it so that you can copy its contents to the pendrive. You can do this on XP using the Microsoft Virtual CD Control Panel (Microsoft.com download link here) or on Vista using Virtual Clone Drive (download here).

fantastic informative replies Fysh but just to add in here that you can download UltraISO here and make the pen drive bootable, then extract the ISO to the pen drive. saving yourself an awful lot of messing around with virtual drives...