hardrive upgrade

[BuMitch]

i am planning on upgrading my hard drive on my laptop (inspiron 1525) from an 80 GB to something bigger, probably 250 or more. How difficult is it to fully transfer everything from the original HD to the new one?

i'm also planning on purchasing windows 7 when it is available, would it be better to wait and run a clean install of windows 7 on the new HD?

thanks for the help

 

[medabomb2000]

If you are needing to backup your information, best way to do so with a laptop is to use a external hard drive to back it onto, unless you want to go the CD/DVD route if you don't have an external available.
If you have another computer in the home and a router you can transfer the files you are wanting to save to that other computer for temporary storage.

Either way, shouldn't be too hard to backup your computer as long as you have the time to do so.

I would recommend to wait until you do get the new OS, due to having to reformat the drive again when you come to that point. Windows 7 will need you to run a fresh install on the OS which will force you to do another backup at that time as well.

 

[BuMitch]

ok great i was thinking of getting an external as well. i think that will be my best option.
so once i have the windows 7 disk, it will "install" the hard drive by itself and i won't need to do anything else?

 

[medabomb2000]

When you have the new OS, go ahead and run your backup onto the external before installing it to save all your current files. Once that is completed, take out your old hard drive and place the new one in, and then place the Windows 7 disk into your dvd drive to install the OS. The install will detect the new hard drive, all you will need to do is format the drive and install the OS on the new partition. From there the OS will ask you questions on the install of how you want it set up, cd key, etc.

 

[BuMitch]

great! thanks for your help.

another question off topic... is it possible to upgrade from vista 32-bit to windows 7 64-bit? from what i understand, since i am doing a clean install, it shouldn't be a problem...?

 

[medabomb2000]

That is correct, should NOT be a problem as you are going to be placing this on a new hard drive when you install the OS.

 

[elgsus]

Just don't make the same mistake alot of people do when going to 64-bit; Make sure you have plenty of RAM. 4 GB is a very good amount to have for a 64-bit version of an OS, and you'll need to keep in mind that Windows 7 may use more resources than Windows Vista.

But yeah, just follow what the others posted and you should be fine.

 

[GibsonSGKing]

Just don't make the same mistake alot of people do when going to 64-bit; Make sure you have plenty of RAM. 4 GB is a very good amount to have for a 64-bit version of an OS, and you'll need to keep in mind that Windows 7 may use more resources than Windows Vista.

But yeah, just follow what the others posted and you should be fine.

Wait, so 64bit OS's use substantially more ram then their 32bit counterparts? Didn't know that....

 

[Russel1]

Wait, so 64bit OS's use substantially more ram then their 32bit counterparts? Didn't know that....

I wouldn't quite put it that way. Vista 32 bit, for example will only utilize about 3 GB of ram. Any more than that is unused. Vista 64 bit, will can access and use all 4 GB of ram (if you have that much.)

I don't have the cold hard facts about how much ram each version of the OS uses as overhead, but I don't think is a huge difference. If you have 4 GB or more ram, you want a 64 bit operating system so that you can make use of all that ram

 

[GibsonSGKing]

I wouldn't quite put it that way. Vista 32 bit, for example will only utilize about 3 GB of ram. Any more than that is unused. Vista 64 bit, will can access and use all 4 GB of ram (if you have that much.)

I don't have the cold hard facts about how much ram each version of the OS uses as overhead, but I don't think is a huge difference. If you have 4 GB or more ram, you want a 64 bit operating system so that you can make use of all that ram

Oh. I knew that, but I thought you were saying that you needed more ram to use 64bit. I only have 2gb of ram ATM, but I really don't see a reason for more.