Windows 7 Installation Issue

WopTittyPop

Hola Boardsies!

I packed away my desktop a year ago, and I've decided to bring her back down from the dusty dark attic and set her back up again.
I previously had Windows XP installed on it, and now I'm trying to upgrade it to Windows 7 Ultimate x64. I'm fairly computer literate, and have installed OS's several times before, but I'm having a problem with this one.

When I go to select the drive to install Windows on, it keeps giving me an error saying "Setup was unable to use the existing system partition because it does not contain the required free space."

I have 4 hard drives installed:

1 - Size: 76.3gb, Free Space: 24.7gb
2 - Size: 111.8gb, Free Space: 108.1gb (Windows XP currently installed)
3 - Size: 118.8gb, Free Space: 118.8gb
4 - Size: 74.5gb, Free Space: 74.5gb

The last two hard drives (3 and 4) have had their partitions deleted and set to unallocated space (after I had the problem originally I checked the internet for solutions and a few forums told me to set the drives to unallocated space but still no luck).

Any solutions?

Cheers!

Blazer

WopTittyPop wrote: »

Hola Boardsies!

I packed away my desktop a year ago, and I've decided to bring her back down from the dusty dark attic and set her back up again.
I previously had Windows XP installed on it, and now I'm trying to upgrade it to Windows 7 Ultimate x64. I'm fairly computer literate, and have installed OS's several times before, but I'm having a problem with this one.

When I go to select the drive to install Windows on, it keeps giving me an error saying "Setup was unable to use the existing system partition because it does not contain the required free space."

I have 4 hard drives installed:

1 - Size: 76.3gb, Free Space: 24.7gb
2 - Size: 111.8gb, Free Space: 108.1gb (Windows XP currently installed)
3 - Size: 118.8gb, Free Space: 118.8gb
4 - Size: 74.5gb, Free Space: 74.5gb

The last two hard drives (3 and 4) have had their partitions deleted and set to unallocated space (after I had the problem originally I checked the internet for solutions and a few forums told me to set the drives to unallocated space but still no luck).

Any solutions?

Cheers!

unless you plan to dual boot....disconnect all hard drives and leave in the one you want to use..
Lot easier this way the first time around...
I've heard of this kind of error before....basically the hard drive you intend to use....delete all partitions on it...and when it tells you that windows will create a partition for system files select yes...I think your problem lies there..the setup disk is not actually creating the partition it requires for the temp useage while setting up so it fails out.

Nerdy Mc Nerd

Had a similar problem it had some thing to do with the way the disk was partitioned and formatted. Had to stick the hard drive in a different computer and remove the portions and start the set up again.

You wont need your old copy of xp win7 is fairly backwards compatible (I've found so far) and there is an XP mode you can download aswell

WopTittyPop

Nerdy Mc Nerd wrote: »

Had a similar problem it had some thing to do with the way the disk was partitioned and formatted. Had to stick the hard drive in a different computer and remove the portions and start the set up again.

You wont need your old copy of xp win7 is fairly backwards compatible (I've found so far) and there is an XP mode you can download aswell

Strange that the hard drive had to be put in a different computer for that to work. I wouldn't have thought it would make a difference, unless you used different partitioning software the second time?

Ah I know I'll do away with XP once I get 7 installed. I've only one PC in the house so I'm keeping XP on at the moment so I can use software to partition. Someone told me there's a way of doing it through the BIOS, but I've never tried!

Sc@recrow wrote: »

unless you plan to dual boot....disconnect all hard drives and leave in the one you want to use..
Lot easier this way the first time around...
I've heard of this kind of error before....basically the hard drive you intend to use....delete all partitions on it...and when it tells you that windows will create a partition for system files select yes...I think your problem lies there..the setup disk is not actually creating the partition it requires for the temp useage while setting up so it fails out.

I seen someone recommend this on a forum and it just slipped my mind. I'll give it a go and post results.

Much appreciation for both of your replies!

dickwod1

not sure

WopTittyPop

I disconnected all the hard drives except for one, tried install and still nothing. Connected the HDD with XP on it, started up XP, deleted the partition on the other HDD and set it as unallocated space, disconnected the XP HDD again, ran the Win7 disc, tried to install and got nothing again. Formatted the HDD through the Win7 Installation format option, and finally it's installing!

It seems like having all the other hard drives disconnected, for some reason that I still don't understand, worked. But I'm not going to question it so long as it's going!

Thanks all very much for the replies!
Very much appreciated!

....Now to reinstall all my software.... Yaaargh..