Replace C: drive, but only have Win7 upgrade disk 3

[BionicJohn]

My Windows Experience Index is all in the 7s and 8s bar the HDD C: which is 5.5. So I'm looking to replace it with something faster.

Finding a suitable new HDD is no big deal, but re-installing Win7 could be.

I only have a Win 7 upgrade disc, so will I have to install WinXP first or is there a way to install Win7 on to a clean HDD from the upgrade disc?

Many thanks,
John.

Liverpool: Capital of Culture 2008
Anfield: Capital of Football since 1892
Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[G0AOZ]

You'll probably have to install an earlier (licenced) version of Windows first, then run your W7 upgrade disk.

Or failing that, how about cloning your new disk from the original one? Acronis? Or Easeus Disk Copy?

ROGER - G0AOZ.

 

[Freestone]

http://www.google.com/search?q=inst...-us&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1

 

[linney]

Have they changed the values (range) in Windows Experience Index as I thought the highest possible was a 7.9?

What is the Windows Experience Index?

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-AU/windows7/What-is-the-Windows-Experience-Index

Clean Install Windows 7 with Upgrade Media

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/clean_install_upgrade_media.asp

 

[BadBigBen]

if you are going to get a SSD, then I can only suggest the following software:

Paragon Migrate OS to SSD

http://www.paragon-software.com/technologies/components/migrate-OS-to-SSD/

even if you are not going to get a SSD, but a regular but faster HDD (VelociRaptor for example), the above will work as well, but then there are other imaging solutions available out there, that would help you migrate from one drive to another...

e.g. Linux liveCD Parted Magic, which incorporates the tool GPARTED, with which you can copy over the OS to a newer drive...

Instruction on how to use GPARTED can be found here:

http://partedmagic.com/documentation/119-using-gparted.html

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[Sympology]

here is a resonable guide.

http://social.answers.microsoft.com...l/thread/23340c37-3e5b-4e60-9dc0-e1ebf330337f

Robert Wilensky:
We've all heard that a million monkeys banging on a million typewriters will eventually reproduce the entire works of Shakespeare. Now, thanks to the Internet, we know this is not true.

 

[Nelviticus]

Seems crazy to upgrade just so you get higher numbers in a dialog box. Is your hard drive actually too slow?

The Windows Experience Index numbers are capped for non-SSD hard drives, so even if someone were to invent a mechanical hard drive that was 30x faster than an SSD, the SSD would still get a higher WEI score.

Nelviticus

 

[BionicJohn]

My aim was to crank up the HDD rating…

Liverpool: Capital of Culture 2008
Anfield: Capital of Football since 1892
Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[BadBigBen]

Even with two RAID0 SSD drives, we didn't achieve anything higher than 6.5. And frankly that's not the sort of solution we expect anyone to be regularly running even by the start of 2010.

source: Get a perfect 7.9 Windows 7 WEI score

Ben
"If it works don't fix it! If it doesn't use a sledgehammer..."
How to ask a question, when posting them to a professional forum.
Only ask questions with yes/no answers if you want "yes" or "no"

 

[BionicJohn]

Ah! Thanks, BBB, so the WEI isn't quite what I thought it was, and maybe my HDD isn't that bad after all.

And thanks for the links about a clean install with upgrade media - much appreciated.

Liverpool: Capital of Culture 2008
Anfield: Capital of Football since 1892
Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[Hawthorne]

I have standard hard drives, they are what lower my computers rating.

My performance figure are from 6.9 to 7.5 except for the hard drives. But the hard drives are 5.9 so that is my rating.

That doesn't stop my computer from showing frames rates as high as 250 fps in Age Of Conan and Lord of the Rings Online.

Just make sure you have a lot of ram to load the stuff into.

I would have loved to have SSDs but 2 TB of disk space would put my in debt until I'm 80.

 

[Nelviticus]

The WEI is definitely capped based on the type of drive - see the end of this post on the Windows Engineering Team blog - for an example.

I'm sure I've read somewhere on that blog that single (i.e. not in RAID) mechanical disks are capped at 5.9, although I can't find the link at the moment.

Here's another one of their posts explaining the WEI in detail:
Engineering the Windows 7 “Windows Experience Index”

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[flyboytim]

To get back to BionicJohn's original question, this article and subsequent comments may clear up any questions re the upgrade:

http://www.zdnet.com/blog/bott/clean-install-with-windows-7-upgrade-media-get-the-facts/1505

 

[BionicJohn]

It's not a Licence issue - I have the full Version of WinXP and an Upgrade Version of Win7.

What I want to do is not have to install WinXP then Win7. I want to use the upgrade disk to install Win7 on to a new HDD. Others have indicated how to do this, including cloning/imaging the existing HDD.

The new HDD will be the only hardware change to the system.

(I did orginally carry out the full upgrade from WinXP to Win7 using the lengthy backup procedure, but there's no trace of WinXP now.)

Liverpool: Capital of Culture 2008
Anfield: Capital of Football since 1892
Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[flyboytim]

What is to stop you installing the new HDD alongside the existing HDD, then installing Windows 7 from the U/G disk on the new hard disk?

Install should recognise the new drive and allow you to set that as the new C:\ drive (when booted from that installation). It will probably set up a dual boot for the systems on each disk. (I have XP, and full Windows 7 dual boot on 2 different disks, and each believes that it is booting from a C:\ drive, with the drive of the Win 7 appearing to XP as F:\, and XP appearing to Win 7 as D:, which is crazy IMHO.

The problem, as always, will be activation and getting a genuine windows authentication. You may have to do this by telephone if the online rigmarole fails.

Subsequently you can wipe the old hard disk after the new installation is working OK.

To some extent, it is a licence issue, as you have agreed not to use the old XP software now that you have upgraded to Windows 7, and used the upgrade for more than 30 days, as it says in the EULA. To install the old XP on the new hard drive would be a violation, even if you are doing it temporarily to facilitate a Windows 7 installation.

 

[Nelviticus]

It wouldn't be a violation if you didn't activate it.

But that's academic - there are plenty of sites out there that tell you how to use an upgrade disk to perform a clean installation of Windows 7 but John doesn't need to do that. Sure, he can if he wants to, but unless he upgrades to an SSD or a RAID array he's still only going to get 5.9 in his Windows Experience Index.

An alternative to the whole wipe & reinstall circus is to just clone your existing drive to the new one then swap them over. Once you're sure everything's working you can then re-format the old one. Here's a guide to doing just that - I've successfully used CloneZilla in the past.

Regards

Nelviticus

 

[flyboytim]

I must remember that "It wouldn't be a violation if you didn't activate it.", and to remain on the safe side, I will not activate any Microsoft product in future

 

[Nelviticus]

Ah but then you wouldn't be able to use it. You can extend the Windows 7 grace period a few times but eventually you're going to have to activate it if you want to keep on using it. I can't remember how the grace period worked for XP (if at all), but if you wanted to install 7 from an upgrade disc you could install XP, not activate it, then install 7 and it would (should!) work.

Nelviticus

 

[BionicJohn]

To some extent, it is a licence issue, as you have agreed not to use the old XP software now that you have upgraded to Windows 7, and used the upgrade for more than 30 days, as it says in the EULA. To install the old XP on the new hard drive would be a violation, even if you are doing it temporarily to facilitate a Windows 7 installation.

Good point, though I'm pretty sure that temporary installation of WinXP will not require activation for the upgrade.

But that's academic - there are plenty of sites out there that tell you how to use an upgrade disk to perform a clean installation of Windows 7 but John doesn't need to do that. Sure, he can if he wants to, but unless he upgrades to an SSD or a RAID array he's still only going to get 5.9 in his Windows Experience Index.

I've now accepted that to raise the WEI is more than just fitting a supposedly faster drive, and there are serious questions about using the WEI to rate your PC's speed and power.

However, I have learned that it is possible to install Win7 on to a new new disk. As result of this method, the Win7 activation will initially appear greyed out and inactive, but a relatively simple Registry amendment will resolve that. I doubt that this an acceptable process in Microsoft's view though the final outcome is the same, and likely to be undetectable thereafter.

UPDATE
My second HDD, started suffering from the dreaded Samsung clicking yesterday. I've removed it, and while the WEI remained the same, the performance to the PC improved by a very noticeable margin. Would I be correct that in thinking that it was this failing drive that was causing the system to slow down?

In case you're worried about the data, it was a back up drive, so I was left with only the original files. I've now replaced the Samsung with a WD, and the system is running more like it should. In fact I timed from bootup to seeing TT home page appearing in FF, and it was a fraction under 90 seconds. That's more like it!

Liverpool: Capital of Culture 2008
Anfield: Capital of Football since 1892
Iechyd da! John
Glannau Mersi, Lloegr.

 

[linney]

With Microsoft operating systems you cannot "in place upgrade" from XP to Windows 7 via any upgrade path. You can upgrade XP to Vista, then Vista can be upgraded to Windows 7, but there is no upgrade for XP to Windows 7 directly.

Windows Easy Transfer can be run on XP and then on Windows 7.

Upgrading to Windows 7
Upgrading from Windows XP to Windows 7

http://www.winsupersite.com/win7/win7_upgrade_02.asp

There is a third party path to do XP to Windows 7.

"It may seem confusing, but here’s the solution: PCmover Upgrade Assistant. XP to Windows 7? No problem! Vista Home Premium to Windows 7 Professional? Yep, we do that. How about Vista 32-bit to Windows 7 64-bit? Of course!"

PCmover Upgrade Assistant

http://www.laplink.com/pcmover/pcmoverupgradeassistant.html