Question I have from my operating systems class

[u8mypizza1]

Hello all, I'm currently taking a course in school at the moment for operating systems concepts. It's my first year, so I'm still learning a lot of things.

They're three questions we need to answer for extra credit:

Can you save your data during a clean install only using 1 Hardrive?
I would say yes if you could create partitions before clean install?
What happens to your data when you upgrade to Windows 7 from Windows XP?
I'm assuming there has to be a feature that allows you to save your data before an upgrade
Can you upgrade from Windows 7 Home 32-bit to Windows 10 Pro 64-bit?
I believe this would depend on your hardware components being able to allow a 64-bit operating system.

If anybody has a definitive answer for these, It would be of great help.

 

[COLGeek]

We don't do homework questions, typically. Since you at least gave it a try. See below.

1. Yes, separate partitions would support saving data on a single HDD with a clean install.
2. There is no upgrade path directly from Windows XP to Windows 7. There is a different process that you use to make this transition (Easy Transfer).
3. You can't upgrade from any 32-bit version of Windows to any 64-bit version of Windows. This requires a clean install instead.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4503

 

[u8mypizza1]

We don't do homework questions, typically. Since you at least gave it a try. See below.

1. Yes, separate partitions would support saving data on a single HDD with a clean install.
2. There is no upgrade path directly from Windows XP to Windows 7. There is a different process that you use to make this transition (Easy Transfer).
3. You can't upgrade from any 32-bit version of Windows to any 64-bit version of Windows. This requires a clean install instead.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=4503

So for question 2 you can't directly upgrade from XP to 7 and have your data? Would you have to backup your data on an external storage and do a clean install of 7 and then restore it?

For question 3, would you say the answer is technically yes if you do a clean install?

My teacher is very technical about how we answer questions like this, you should see our quizzes and tests lol. Very difficult for first-year students. I appreciate your response. I like to do the work myself to learn better but sometimes you just need help if you're stuck.

 

[USAFRet]

For question 3, would you say the answer is technically yes if you do a clean install?

Then it isn't an 'upgrade'.
When someone speaks of 'upgrade', generally they mean change the OS, but keep all your 'stuff' mostly in place.
32bit to 64bit is a full wipe and reinstall, AKA 'clean install'. Not an Upgrade.


Also, you have to be quite careful and specific what you mean by 'data'.
Data is simple files. A Word doc, a video, your music.
Applications are different. MS Office, VLC, iTunes.

Quite often, people lump all that together.

"Data" you can back up to another partition, and then bring back to the main drive or partition.
Applications, you usually can't. They can't be copied and moved around easily.