Installing Windows 7 Home Premium OEM on a new hard drive

[rumpled103]

Ok, so I have a computer that came pre-installed with Windows 7 Home Premium 64-bit. Now I was trying to backup the computer using Acronis True Image, but during the beginning of that, it gave me a lot of sector errors, so I just chose to ignore all of them. The backup operation completed after an hour or so. Now, I was told that I may have to do chkdsk /r, it will try to fix the bad sectors as well as any errors. But I might end up losing all my data. I was also directed to an Acer website from the UK with a hard disk checker. It also reported bad sectors and gave me the option to repair them. I chose no. Here's the link: http://acer--uk.custhelp.com/app/answers/detail/a_id/11589/~/testing-the-hard-disk Now, I am thinking about getting a new 1 TB hard drive, my current one is 640 GB and made by WD. Now I have an .iso file for Win 7 Home Premium which I got from getintopc. And I would need to be able to install Windows on the new hard drive. But I don't wanna do that because I'm afraid it'll be detected as a new computer and it'll see that I still have an activated Windows on the old hard drive, thereform not allowing me to activate Windows on the new hard drive. So how do I go about uninstalling Windows on the old hard drive and reinstalling and activating it on the new one? Do I need to format the old hard drive?

Edit: Sorry if you see any typos, I was on my phone.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Welcome to the TH community, @rumpled103!

Awesome job with the immediate backup!
You shouldn't encounter any issues reinstalling the Windows 7 Home Premium since it's OEM. The activation code/product key is tied to the motherboard of the computer, so you shouldn't face any troubles with the new 1 TB HDD. However, you should definitely unplug the old one from the SATA ports on the motherboard while installing the OS. Otherwise, you are bound to encounter an OS confusion that would result in a lot of booting issues later on. I'd definitely not trust any data with the current HDD since there are bad sectors on it and I'd strongly recommend finishing the diagnostic tests on it to determine the health and SMART stats. You cannot fix the bad sectors, they are just being blocked and re-mapped. However, if the health is decreasing then you should definitely replace the drive soon!
Having the .iso won't do you much good, you should create a bootable flash drive with it. You can follow these MS instructions on the step-by-steps.

Hope this was helpful. Keep me posted if you have more questions or concerns.
SuperSoph_WD

 

[rumpled103]

I know I have to create a bootable flash drive with the .iso. I got Rufus for that. Well, anyway, right now I'm doing an extended scan with Western Digital Data LifeGuard Diagnostics, which is from the link I provided. I don't know if I should choose to repair the bad sectors. I may end up losing some data that I don't know about and if I do, I don't know where it might have came from. But yeah, if I can't fix the bad sectors, then I'll definitely try to get a new hard drive at my local Fry's. What will be even worse is that even if I install Windows on the new hard drive, I'll basically be stuck with a hard drive that has a lot of sector errors that I can't fix and probably useless. I could try to take it to my local Fry's Customer Service department and see what they can do, but they'll probably charge like $100 or more to do testing on it and, if I have the new hard drive, attempt to transfer the data from the old hard drive to the new one. But that doesn't mean they will probably fix the sector errors. My dad bought the computer in December of 2011 when I finally convinced him to get rid of an old MicronPC computer with Windows XP Professional 32-bit on it (it came pre-installed with Windows ME actually). So it's been like a good 4-5 years old since we've had it.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Well, that's why it's VERY important to backup all your data from the HDD somewhere else before you run the Extended test from the Data LifeGuard Diagnostics tool.Once you have copied your files somewhere safe (to an external drive, other storage device, cloud storage, etc.), then it's safe to repair the bad sectors and risk corrupting some of your files. It's not advisable to clone the old HDD which has bad sectors to a new one. This might actually do more damage than good. Moreover, you still don't know the exact number of bad sectors, so I'd strongly recommend checking the SMART stats after running the Extended test. (Click on the View SMART data button above the list of drives in the DLG tool)

As for your local PC repair store services, they will most probably be able to transfer the data from the HDD somewhere else (most of the times to another HDD or an external). However, they won't be able to fix the damage on the HDD, especially if it has physically failed.

Either way, keep me posted, @rumpled103!
Good luck!
SuperSoph_WD

 

[rumpled103]

Alright, so I just finished with the Diagnostics test and when I tried to repair the bad sectors, it said "Error was detected while repairing bad sectors". So what does that mean? And as far as installing and activating Windows 7, that's solved.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Unfortunately, it looks like your old WD HDD has failed. This basically means that you won't be able to trust any data with it from now on, mostly because you will risk losing it. I'd also avoid using the HDD any more because the additional stress would most probably make it fail even faster.
As I already mentioned the best thing to do is to replace it ASAP. I hope you got the chance to backup your data from it as well before attempting to repair the sectors. What did the SMART results show, though? Did you check them?

SuperSoph_WD

 

[rumpled103]

I already posted what the results were. The extended test showed a FAIL and the reason was "Error was detected while repairing bad sectors." I don't even know what that means, but I guess it's an indicator that the hard drive is failing. Anyway, I've already backed up my data, but right now I don't really feel like recovering my data because the computer runs smooth, fast, and is very responsive now. And I think that's because I had a lot of programs running in the background which were taking up so much memory and CPU. I can't go back to the old hard drive 'cause I already put in the new hard drive and installed Win 7 on it.