Upgrading to Windows 7. Any advise on partitioning or install?

Forums › Microsoft Windows › Upgrading to Windows 7. Any advise on partitioning or install?

NZRobin

161 posts

Master Geek

#57460 14-Feb-2010 15:26

Hi Everyone, I'm about to install the free upgrade W7 Home-Premium on my recently purchased Asus laptop with 320GB hard-drive and 3GB of Ram. It laptop is to be a replacement for my ageing noisy underpowered and frankly cumbersome desktop. I don't game but do watch movies and streamed material from the net and would like to use the laptop as media centre as needed.

I'm looking for advise on partitioning as I believe W7 will offer the option on a clean install? Should I just do a dual partition as it has now 'C' & 'D' or should I have three, one for the OS, one for the programs, and one for saved data, letters, photo's etc. What size would you suggest for each.

Any advise on the actual install apart from backing up any files I actually want to save? I've removed photo's and letters etc onto another computer. I'm assuming I don't need to save anything to do with Express-Gate.

Thanks for your advise

Robin

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uktuatara

149 posts

Master Geek

#298904 14-Feb-2010 18:30

For a Windows 7 (or any version for that matter) install I usually do a two partition install. C: for system (OS and prgrams etc) and D: for Data (user files, user profiles etc). This way if you ever have to re-install the OS for any reason, all your important files are stored on a seperate partition and you can blow away the system partition safely if required.

Sizewise I'd set around 40 GB for the System OS, installa clean install there. Then move the Users folder acorss to the D: so all your default save locations are moved onto D:

Don't do the upgrade option, always clean install if you can.

If you're worried you havent got all the personal files you need then I suggest you run a search for all the main file types avi, mp4, mp3, doc, xls, ppt, jpg etc etc and check out the folder locations it returns. You might find some program has been saving files somewhere you didn't know about.

Other than that, the few installations of Windows 7 I've done have gone smoothly, I;d check that your hardware doesn't have specific drivers required for install, download them and have them ready on a USB key just to be safe. Windows 7 in all of my installs has been pretty good at poicking up the right hardware, but you never know!

Good luck ;)

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NZRobin

161 posts

Master Geek

#298922 14-Feb-2010 20:11

Great advise thanks. The upgrade came from Asus upgrade representatives so wouldn't it have all the correct drivers with it?

Thanks

robin

Quotes

" Robot wars.... thats a sport!!!"

"Believing something doesn't make it so."

uktuatara

149 posts

Master Geek

#298925 14-Feb-2010 20:43

Still worth just dropping into the asus website and looking up your model of laptop ... check out here, only takes a few minutes and better to be safe than ... angry at your computer :)

http://support.asus.com/download/download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us

NZRobin

161 posts

Master Geek

#298944 14-Feb-2010 22:21

Thanks, I appreciate your advise, I'll do that!

Quotes

" Robot wars.... thats a sport!!!"

"Believing something doesn't make it so."