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Have i got this right. i am going to format my notebook,i want to get rid of a partition, am informed that i cannot just clear it. I also wish to instal my win7 pro rather than the win 7 basic.
before i format the drive i need to get files and drivers etc, so is it under the heading of recovery disc, or just a backup disc, not a floopy, there is no cd/dvd drive, i use an external one, can i use a usb 32gig instead.
i can then install all my camping sites on ready for our trip away.
Do you already have windows 7 discs. If so all you need to do is back up all your files you want to keep on to your external hard drive. They can be named anything you like but it is easiest to back them up as they are. Delete anything you dont need first
From memory you then need to go to the CMD prompt in dos and reformat from there.
search it on google. There is plenty of free support on this.
You will have a separate partition on your hard disc with your recovery software on there. Why not use that to take your laptop back to factory then install windows 7 as an upgrade.
If you format your disc you could end up removing that partition and I don't think you want to do that.
If the partition you want rid of is not the system partition it can be deleted using disk management, the system partition (normally C:\) cannot be deleted whilst the computer is in use, but that doesn't help if you want to re-install the OS.
What i would do;
Check that your computer will boot from the external cd drive, if so.
Use device manager to identify all your hardware and drivers and download the latest from the internet.
Copy all your data files off the computer onto an external drive or across a network onto another system, along with the new drivers.
Then place the win7 disc in the drive and restart the system.
The first part of setup, the OS installation routines, is a disk management utility, use this to delete the existing partitions then to create a new C drive (and any data partitions you require.
Format the new C drive as NTFS (quick format) then continue with setup, follow the screens until win7 installation finishes.
Install any required drivers that you already downloaded.
Install AV software.
Perform any windows updates needed.
Create yourself a standard user account to use the system on a normal basis, don't use the admin account created during installation.
Configure the computer how you like it.
Copy your data files back onto the new system and install any further software you have/want.
I agree with the previous advice but one thing to watch out for is that your previous operating system has been fully deleted after using quick format. I have had it happen several times that it hasn't and the only way to remove it is to do a full reformat. You will know if it hasn't been removed if you have missing disk space i.e. total disk size less used size of new c drive is greater than free space showing in my computer. From recollection I've only had this problem with XP installations and not W7 but it is still worth looking out for.
I agree with the full format as quick format only resets the index for the partition / disk. A full format will write to the full partition and flag any real flaws it finds on the disk.
Surely, if you are upgrading W7Basic to W7Pro, the updating process will overwrite the original system , leaving all your data files intact.
Then you can remove or backup unwanted files, leaving you a clear computer for the future.
When running the format utility during the installation of the OS there is no difference in the actual formatting that is performed when doing a regular format or a quick format, the formatting is identical, the reason a regular format takes a huge amount more time is due to the fact that the disk is then checked for bad sectors.
In this scenario whereby a working OS is to be replaced by a clean install; the bad sector check is not worth the wait, the previous installation will have flagged any bad sectors it encountered (NTFS actually does this), in an area on the disk, as the footprint of the previous installation is larger, due to installed applications, user files/data etc, than the new install, the new OS files will not likely extend beyond the previously used area. furthermore; most bad sectors are handled by the disk controller as it maps them to spare good sectors on the disk, the OS isn't even aware. obviously any logical checks which would normally be performed would be useless as the disk has been formatted, so can't contain directory errors, cross linked files etc.
If when you are performing a clean install you want to ensure that any bad sectors are marked accordingly, run chkdsk after the installation, that way you get the benefit of the large amount of logical checks that will also take place, which are far more likely to cause corruption or instability.
HTH
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Of course; doing a regular format won't do any harm, you just need to wait a couple of hours.
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Last edited by lgbzone on Thu Jan 19, 2012 9:04 pm; edited 1 time in total
Upgrading the OS is far better now than in previous years but still has issues, personally i would never do it if it could be avoided, any issues on the original system normally persist through to the OS after the upgrade. ideally the OS on a home PC would be re-installed every couple of years, it makes a big difference to the performance of the system. i'd go for a clean install every time (then image it so it only takes a few minutes next time )
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