Noooo, time to change OS again :(

[fustercluck]

Time for a fresh OS install. Going from Vista to Windows 7. Changing the OS is always a giant pain in the ass, no way around that, but...that doesn't mean I can't try to make it as simple as possible. Going to be an even bigger pain in this ass this time since I'm trying do everything on a single HDD (my other HDD failed). Basically want to do is get rid of any trace of the current OS installation on my computer, like it was never there, and install windows 7 without deleting any other files.

I can manage having to reinstall all my programs (that's the main pain in the ass part), but I don't want to lose any save data from any games I'm playing, and would like Steam is stay put as well, so I don't have to reinstall all my Steam games again. I think there's some feature on steam or some program out there that will backup everything Steam related like nothing had changed.

Heh the more I think about it the more I'd rather just stay with this OS install that freezes once every 2 hours. Changing an OS probably wouldn't help anyways.

Enough early morning rambling for me...if there's a semi-easy way to upgrade from vista to windows 7 without deleting/F'ing up all my files I guess I'll check it out. I can't put off changing my OS forever, especially with all the problems of this current install.

 

[RebateMonger]

Get a second hard drive. 1 TB disks are in the $50-$60 range in the U.S. Install Win7 and test it to see if your other problems are solved. If all is well, you can insert the old drive as a secondary disk and copy your files over.

Afterwards, use the old disk for keeping backups of your data.

If you don't mind using your old disk as the boot disk, then image your old disk to the new disk, test it to make sure all the files are there and it boots, and then install Win7 to your old disk. Then proceed as above and use the new disk for keeping backups.

 

[gsaldivar]

Get a second hard drive. 1 TB disks are in the $50-$60 range in the U.S. Install Win7 and test it to see if your other problems are solved. If all is well, you can insert the old drive as a secondary disk and copy your files over.

This x 1000.

Easy... breezy...

 

[fustercluck]

woah i forgot about this thread, that's how tired I was when I made it 😛 (kinda obvious I guess)

Anywho, that sounds like a good plan. I want to put the Windows 7 drive through a rigorous line of tests though, instead of just using it and waiting to see if it will crash or not. What should I use for that? Prime95 or is that mainly just for stress testing the CPU?

thanks for ze replies

 

[fustercluck]

Still dreading doing all this, but I hate my computer crashing all the time. So i can only put it off for so much longer. Can I just backup the entire Steam folder or is that just going to lead to a lot of problems? Really don't want to have to reinstall all my games and lose all my save files in the process.

 

[fustercluck]

found my old copy of Acronis true image. Said it was going to take 16 hours to backup all my stuff 😛 - I guess I either need to find a big time gap or figure out another way to backup everything. Should I be using the Clone disk feature instead of the disk/partition backup?

 

[gsaldivar]

I don't understand why you are bothering with a backup. Your existing hard drive *is* your backup.

1. Remove existing hard drive.

2. Buy a new one, install Windows 7.

3. Run for a while and confirm everything is working well.

4. Connect the old hard drive as a secondary.

5. Copy your stuff over gradually as you need it.

As previously mentioned - a new hard drive should only run you $50+ so no it's not the cheapest way of doing it. But it is the easiest way...

 

[fustercluck]

The 1TB USB drive is temporary, doesn't belong to me. So I need to backup everything on there to get a fresh install of windows 7 on my own TB drive, then copy stuff back over from the temp USB drive. I don't want to turn my own terrabyte drive into a backup anyways, it's fairly new. But, I'm never going to have enough time to back up my drive onto the USB drive anyways...so I will have to look for another way. So it's already been a big pain in the ass and I haven't even done anything yet 😛

 

[Compman55]

Only you are making it a pain. Never use a slow usb for large backups, and forget the stacks of DVD's / CD's that are also slow.

Install win7 on a brand new drive. Test for a short time (1 week) and if all is well, install your old hard drive or the one you borrowed or whatever.... and copy the info to your fresh win 7 install. It is that simple and was mentioned in the above posts. I do it all the time and it really is so simple it will make you laugh after you do it.

I will tell you that diagnosing crashes are somtimes hard. I always test memory, video card, then hard drive diagnostics. If they all pass, then I suspect the OS as the issue. With an extra drive it makes the diagnosing so easy.

 

[ynlop87]

I will tell you that diagnosing crashes are somtimes hard. I always test memory, video card, then hard drive diagnostics. If they all pass, then I suspect the OS as the issue. With an extra drive it makes the diagnosing so easy.

Compman, what software do you use for testing if you don't mind me asking? I could use a recommendation,

 

[fustercluck]

Yeah I just hate doing this, but probably making it harder than it should be.

I changed some options in Acronis and the backup went pretty quickly (less than 4 hours). My drives are all backed up as .tib files though, which worries me a bit. Would I be able to boot off a tib file if the windows 7 install doesn't go as planned? Also it compressed my 200gig partition to about 150 gb which also worries me. I might do it over again without the compression. It would still be a tib file though. Would almost like to just take acronis out of the picture completely but I don't think I'd be able to boot into Vista on the destination drive if i just manually copied and pasted the C drive over.

So are tib files pretty easy to work with or should I be looking at other options? Can I even open tib files without Acronis installed?

 

[fustercluck]

In windows 7 now and things are going a little rocky, for some reason it doesn't like my serial. I have 30 days to figure that out though.

Acronis is holding my old files hostage, if I try and copy any of my backup files to the Program Files folder it tells me access is denied. Fook.

 

[RebateMonger]

In windows 7 now and things are going a little rocky, for some reason it doesn't like my serial. I have 30 days to figure that out though.

Actually, if you are talking about Win7 Activation, you have four months by using the DOS Prompt "SLMGR -rearm" command every thirty days.

Regarding reinstalling applications:
Some programs will work by just copying their folders from one PC to another. Others have extensive Registry entries and require a full re-install to run properly. Others are in-between.

 

[Compman55]

Compman, what software do you use for testing if you don't mind me asking? I could use a recommendation,

I find out what brand hard drive and download that manufactures diagnostics. It will run and let you know of any drive problems.

Memory I use the latest memtest86 and let it run a few passes overnight.

Video card I will usually swap in a known good one becuase graphics tests are usless if the computer is crashing due to a ram problem.

Lastly I change windows to a "kernel dump" and send the crash dump file to someone who is capable of debugging. They can usally tell me if it is hardware or software related, and yes just knowing that is very useful.

 

[pcslookout]

Actually, if you are talking about Win7 Activation, you have four months by using the DOS Prompt "SLMGR -rearm" command every thirty days.

Regarding reinstalling applications:
Some programs will work by just copying their folders from one PC to another. Others have extensive Registry entries and require a full re-install to run properly. Others are in-between.

That is why I always use portable apps now! If it is not I make it portable!

 

[fustercluck]

When I try to copy files from my old program files (from the big Acronis made TIB) file it just says has one of those loading icons for about 30 seconds then nothing happens, with no explanation. I kinda thought the reason to backup your files was so you could access them later? Grr i hate acronis, never use it. Any ideas why Acronis won't let me move my old files? It's like it has a limit of how big of a file I can move. Sometimes It will tell me "Access is denied" with no further explanation, but usually no error message or nothing.

Also if I try to copy other files (not from program files) it transfers pretty slow. Just because there's a lot of small files I guess (still, less than 1000 and the whole transfer is under 500 MB). It's a new external samsung terrabyte drive too so I don't know why it's going so slow. I think the biggest mistake was using Acronis, I should have just forgot about acronis all together, I can't access most of my old files and when I can they transfer hella slow because Acronis put all my stuff in some retarded TIB file that only acronis can read. Would have been much better just to copy and paste my entire C drive to the external.

The stress...I can't takes it no more 🙁 - Changing OS always goes terribly wrong. 95% chance this won't fix my computer freezing problems either.