Dual Boot XP added W7 now want clean install of XP partition

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drdoug

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Jun 15, 2015
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I dual booted my XP desktop with W7 years ago, all worked.
Later W7 had issues,Did clean rinstall and dual boot still works (it just changed W7 drive letter from D to C and XP from C to D) All good.
Now XP boots, but has major issues plus I don't want it anymore.
With free updrade to W10 coming I would like to know if I can intall W7 on XP partition (clean install not upgrade) and then upgrade current W7 to W10. Leaving me with W7/W10 dual boot.
So can I just simply do clean install on original XP partition (that is where the boot stuff is) or will this delete the dual boot.


BTW😛entium Quad core, Sata drives, about tp increase ram to 4gb so I can run 64bit.
 


and this would leave the dual boot intact?

 


BTW: just put an ssd in an i5 450m (sata2) notebook running win7 home premium, I can't believe to difference in performance a high speed drive has made. Old hdd had died, I had a 2.5 external handy so used it to get it running and man externals must be the slowest drives available. I just cloned that drive to a new ssd and wow, better than this notebook has ever been.

RAM for desktop will arrive in the next day or 2, so before I update dual boot I am going to put an ssd in it and start from scratch (current install is too old to bother cloning)
I will post an update of how it goes.

ha ha, always the same; start out doing one thing, end up doing another.
 



Glad to hear that buddy. SSDs are way faster that HDDs. I would always suggest to put an SSD as the main drive for installing windows and software. Then a high capacity HDD for storage of files you do not need to open that fast.

SSDs still have limited storage capacity compared to there price. So for storage, HDD would have to be incorporated as well.
 


that is my idea and I have done it,

All is working great with just the ssd in the PC, but when I add one of the mass storage hdd's (while pc off and not the old system drive) it will not reboot. Gets to loading windows and restarts. I set it to AHCI, before clean install of windows. Installed with only the ssd in.

I am about to put one in again and check the boot order in bios, just in case. Wondering if I need to wipe all drives to start fresh in ahci, not just the system drive. If I can't fix it I will start a new thread, as this is the wrong place for it. I am transferring files from old system drive, about 15min till finished, then I will reformat it and try it after checking the bios with it connected.

If I solve it, I will post it, in case it helps someone else
 
Sure drdoug. Who knows some day it will help me solve an issue I may face in my system.

By the way, try to format the SSD fully after removing the HDD and make sure that the Primary Boot Drive is selected as SSD after the installation process.

 


All this was done before I started and ide was changed to ahci in the bios before windows was installed.
As an external drive on a notebook, I wiped the old hdd system drive, removed all partitions so it was unallocated.
Then put it in the pc, turned it on and went into bios. All was correct Boot order DVD first HDD Second, no third etc.
Checked and ssd set as boot drive. So all good, that wasn't the problem.

Actually there is no problem. It booted into windows and installed the driver for the hdd. Of course it did not show up in (My) Computer as it had to be allocated and formatted. Did this in disc management and FIGJAM.

So what all the tutorials don't tell you is that when you change bios from ide to AHCI is that all the sata discs must be fresh and unallocated so they can be set up for AHCI when they are allocated and formatted in the pc.

I did note that all the tutorials were installling new drives, bit of an oversite not explaining "what if" it was a drive that was in the pc at the time of upgrade. As the SSD needed to be installed after the bios change not before it makes sense that the other drives would be the same.

I have learnt something and it didn't take all night. I can go to bed now (00:35 hours here in Oz, and put the pc back together tomorrow or maybe next week after I transfer the files on the other two storage drives that are in the pc and wipe them before doing it all again. Along with moving my user folders to the storage drives.

I will write a tutorial or something to post for others,
 
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