Drivers

Sephiroth_dude

Hi
I've decided to buy a new harddrive to replace my old one and upgrade to windows 7 and I'm just wondering is it just a case of taking out the old HDD and putting in the new one,booting up the computer and putting the windows 7 disk in? Will I have to go into the bios or anything?also I have 3 driver disks,a motherboard one,a graphics card and a vga driver disk,will these be ok?

help appreciated

mp22

run this http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=20

If you are getting a full version of windows 7 what you outlined above will happen (no messing in the bios ect).If you get a upgrade for windows 7 you will need to load your existing OS onto the new hard drive first.

Sephiroth_dude

mp22 wrote: »

run this http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?id=20

If you are getting a full version of windows 7 what you outlined above will happen (no messing in the bios ect).If you get a upgrade for windows 7 you will need to load your existing OS onto the new hard drive first.

Ya Its a full version I plan on getting,this one http://www.elara.ie/productdetail.aspx?productcode=ECE2162126,would I have to download all the drivers then from the various hardware websites?

lynchie

Depending on your hardware you may / may not have to download drivers for all your hardware.

Make sure you run the upgrade advisor tool to ensure that your hardware is compatible as the 64bit version wont allow 32bit drivers. I guess the drivers disks you have would be 32bit drivers so would be no use on a 64bit system.

Sephiroth_dude

lynchie wrote: »

Depending on your hardware you may / may not have to download drivers for all your hardware.

Make sure you run the upgrade advisor tool to ensure that your hardware is compatible as the 64bit version wont allow 32bit drivers. I guess the drivers disks you have would be 32bit drivers so would be no use on a 64bit system.

Is that available on the windows website?I'm using vista 32bit at the moment.

Sephiroth_dude

Did the test here are the results,what do ye think?good to go? (tryed uploading files as rar format but it wouldn't work )

lynchie

Looks as if there are no potential driver issues, so you should be good to go.

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PogMoThoin

A few tips:
- Be sure to be connected to the internet when installing, Windows will get drivers for connected devices.
- When installed kick start windows update in programs and get all up to date, rebooting when it tells you to, keep doing this until there's no more being offered after the reboot. Then defragment before installing software.
- You can use this to bulk install software: http://ninite.com/
- You can move the documents folder out of the c drive, I always do this. To do this make a My Documents folder on another drive, click Start, click on your name-->right click My Documents-->Properties-->Location-->move it to the new location. I also move Downloads, Desktop, Pics and Videos etc. It leaves me with a lean c drive with just Windows
- When first installed windows will index your files, leave it running for 48hours and the hard drive activity will cease then. You may need to edit power options in control panel to shop it going to standby, edit it back to default when done.
- Defrag once again

All the above will get you a very smooth tidy install, its worth taking an image of your c drive (in case of problems later) when done and storing it on another drive. I use Acronis for this, there are other softwares: http://www.acronis.com/
I can reinstall Windows with this image in 12 minutes and keep my documents etc intact

PogMoThoin

Also, don't bother with the drivers on the disks unless Windows doesn't find drivers for devices, it usually will, its one area where there have been big improvements. Windows will download the latest versions of drivers, many will be newer versions than what's on the disks. You can check for unknown devices in device manager (just start typing device manager in search box ), they'll have a yellow exclamation mark.

Sephiroth_dude

thanks for the help guys,have any of ye ordered off dabs.ie before?are they quick?reliable?

PogMoThoin

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

thanks for the help guys,have any of ye ordered off dabs.ie before?are they quick?reliable?

They're reliable, but they ship from the UK

Sephiroth_dude

what about komplett?any good?

PogMoThoin

Sephiroth_dude wrote: »

what about komplett?any good?

They're reliable too, free delivery on all orders