Hello and thanks for reading. I'm really hoping folks can easily clear up the below for me.
I'm currently running Win XP SP3 32-bit. I have two hard drives, an older Western Digital 250 GB Caviar SATA II drive and a more recent Western Digital 1TB Caviar SATA III drive.
My system is now currently running exclusively on the 1TB drive. Not long ago I cloned it from the older 250 GB drive to gain space.
This means I have an unattached/dormant 250 GB drive that still has Win XP 32-bit OS on it, along with a great deal of other data that's all preserved on my 1 TB drive.
I'm preparing to upgrade to Win 7 64-bit and have bought many new components for the new build — including a new Mushkin 120 GB solid state drive — and the old Caviar hard drives will be integrated into this as well.
So, I want to do the following (unless either I can't or there's a better, easier way):
1. Erase and reformat my 250 GB Caviar drive.
2. Install the now reformatted 250 GB Caviar drive as a slave drive in my current Win XP 32-bit system.
3. Copy all files I want to preserve for my Win 7 build to the 250 GB Caviar drive from my current 1 TB Caviar drive.
4. Now erase and reformat the 1 TB Caviar drive.
5. Build the Win 7 system, loading the Win 7 OS on to my new Mushkin 120 GB solid state drive.
6. Add both the reformatted 1 TB Caviar drive (w/no data) and the 250 GB Caviar drive with my "old" data that I'm transferring over to my Win 7 system on it.
In addition to old files I want to keep, the 250 GB Caviar drive will have drivers and other data useful in setting up my Win 7 system on it.
Is this simple or is there an issue with using a hard drive formatted under Win XP 32-bit on a Win 7 64-bit system? (I'll also note that I bought the full version of Win 7, which has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the OS on it, though I definitely want to ultimately run 64-bit.)
Thoughts? Issues you can see?
Thanks again for reading and any input you can offer.
- ELB
I'm currently running Win XP SP3 32-bit. I have two hard drives, an older Western Digital 250 GB Caviar SATA II drive and a more recent Western Digital 1TB Caviar SATA III drive.
My system is now currently running exclusively on the 1TB drive. Not long ago I cloned it from the older 250 GB drive to gain space.
This means I have an unattached/dormant 250 GB drive that still has Win XP 32-bit OS on it, along with a great deal of other data that's all preserved on my 1 TB drive.
I'm preparing to upgrade to Win 7 64-bit and have bought many new components for the new build — including a new Mushkin 120 GB solid state drive — and the old Caviar hard drives will be integrated into this as well.
So, I want to do the following (unless either I can't or there's a better, easier way):
1. Erase and reformat my 250 GB Caviar drive.
2. Install the now reformatted 250 GB Caviar drive as a slave drive in my current Win XP 32-bit system.
3. Copy all files I want to preserve for my Win 7 build to the 250 GB Caviar drive from my current 1 TB Caviar drive.
4. Now erase and reformat the 1 TB Caviar drive.
5. Build the Win 7 system, loading the Win 7 OS on to my new Mushkin 120 GB solid state drive.
6. Add both the reformatted 1 TB Caviar drive (w/no data) and the 250 GB Caviar drive with my "old" data that I'm transferring over to my Win 7 system on it.
In addition to old files I want to keep, the 250 GB Caviar drive will have drivers and other data useful in setting up my Win 7 system on it.
Is this simple or is there an issue with using a hard drive formatted under Win XP 32-bit on a Win 7 64-bit system? (I'll also note that I bought the full version of Win 7, which has both 32-bit and 64-bit versions of the OS on it, though I definitely want to ultimately run 64-bit.)
Thoughts? Issues you can see?
Thanks again for reading and any input you can offer.
- ELB