Win 7 64 vs Win 7 32 Question...

[JETninja]

The Rig in my Sig is finally going to be retired. Today the final pieces to my new build will arrive. (Asus P55, i5-760, GTX460, 2 1TB HD's, etc..)

I'm going to obviously load it up with Win7 HP 64bit.

My question is, I have a couple SATA drives on the old rig I will also use (the 2 1TB HD's will ran in Raid), and they have quite a few games with many mods etc. In the past when I upgraded from WinXP to Win7 Beta to Win7 HP 32bit, all I had to do was re-install the game and all the mods etc would be picked up just fine.

On the new rig, since it will be 64bit, will it read those HD's just fine? (all are NTFS) When I re-install a game program, I assume its installing in 64bit, can it read those 32bit files? Of course I'm assuming 64bit gets down to the file level, maybe it doesn't...I don't know!

Thanks!

 

[erikistired]

it should read the files fine. one thing that changes that might apply is 32 bit programs go into a different directory. program files (x86). if i understand what you're saying that ~probably~ won't matter.

 

[Dahak]

If you move the drives from the old system which are in a raid?(from your wording thats what i think) you will lose the data as you cannot migrate the array info. Same goes for if they are not in a raid, when you go to create the raid it will destroy the data

 

[Nothinman]

When I re-install a game program, I assume its installing in 64bit, can it read those 32bit files? Of course I'm assuming 64bit gets down to the file level, maybe it doesn't...I don't know!

Don't assume anything. Unless the app explicitly says it's 64-bit, it's almost certainly not. And in general filesystems and data files aren't 32-bit or 64-bit, they hold whatever data in whatever format the author designed them to. Obviously, executables can be either type of build but as long as the app developer did his job right either should be able to open their own data files just fine.

The only major problem is when you install a 64-bit version of an app and try to use a 32-bit library/plugin in it. That's virtually impossible and will likely never be fixed as it's not really a problem in itself.

 

[JETninja]

Sorry, should have been more specific. New PC will have 2 new 1TB HD's in RAID 1 config probably.

I will for a short time at least add two older SATA HD's (not in RAID, never have been) a 750GB and a 160GB that have all my picures, music (both Concert Torrents and Zune WMAs) and games and more. Everything on those has survived Win XP Pro - Win 7 Beta - Win 7 HP migration on the system in my Sig, I only had to reload the basic program (game or say Zune software) and it picked up all the mods, or music etc just fine in that 32bit world.

I was curious if I now add those two data HD's to a 64bit environment would they work or would I have to re-do everything.