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XP to Win 7 upgrading issues

K

Kilgore65

Senior member
I'm contemplating building a new computer, using an AMD dual core processor with 4GB RAM. I've been away from hardware for awhile, so I'm having to relearn everything. My main concerns is moving my data from my old IDE HD to a newer SATA drive. I'd like to make this process as simple as possible - I don't want to get involved in moving programs and data between drives. Here's the scheme I've worked out.

1. Load Windows 7 on my old IDE drive, upgrading the existing XP installation. Copy drive to external HD as a backup.

2. On new computer, install upgraded drive to IDE port on new mobo. Install new blank SATA drive to SATA port.

3. Use drive copy facility to copy contents of IDE drive to new SATA drive.

4. Disconnect IDE drive and boot from SATA drive.

Anyone see any problems with this scheme?
 
Does step 1. involve installing Win7 upgrade over XP using your old system?

And then the following steps try to boot this drive on a new system? Not likely to work without a lot of effort un-installing drivers and repair installing to get the OS compatible with the new system.

I recommend a fresh install on the SATA drive for the new system, and then migrate over apps and data using the appropriate Microsoft tool.
 
Kilgore65 said:
Yes, that is what I want to do? Why wouldn't it work?
Click to expand...

I'm going through the same thing (upgrading XP to 7). I think what betasub is getting at is that there's no such thing (as far as I can tell) of a in-place upgrade of XP to 7. In such cases, 7 will install itself as a fresh clean copy, and you have to copy your data files over to 7 and reinstall your applications. If there's a good way around it, I haven't seen it.

You may want to try what I'm going to do. I'm going the dual-boot approach, and installing 7 on a fresh hard drive, via the method outlined here:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html

*Edit*
Here's what MS says about the XP to 7 upgrade:
http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/upgrading-from-windows-xp-to-windows-7
 
Last edited:
Will not work. It will take some tinkering.
Motherboard will have different chipset.
Different chipset uses different drivers.
You may want to use 64 bit version of Windows 7 while XP probably was 32. I am just guessing.
Game/software/antivirus installs may be different for Windwos 7.

Even if that did work, a freshly installed OS runs a lot better.

If you put all the files you want to keep inside of "My Documents" and use sharing, then you should be able to network both computers to a router and just use the built-in wizard to copy the files.

Dont know if this really works between XP and Win7 . . . .

However, copying files is a lot easier if you organize your files first. Copying them using networking is probably the fastest method. I would think if you had broadband you may already have a router. This just saves the cost of an external drive.

I would make sure you are able to scan the old drive for VIRUS's first.
 
Yes, weeber has pointed out the XP-to-Win7 catch.

And that's before you try moving the OS harddrive over to a new system, with different motherboard & other hardware.
 
OP, what you propose won't work. Start here with the M$ tutorial:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/upgrading-from-windows-xp-to-windows-7

The key point is that there is NO way to do an in-place upgrade from XP to Win 7. You MUST do what amounts to a fresh install of Win 7.

There is a tool to help with a lot of it, called the Windows Easy Transfer utility - see tutorial tab 2. It will NOT transfer your applications for you. You will have to do the fresh install, then re-install all your applications under Win 7. But after that the Easy Transfer tool WILL help you move all your old settings and data files onto the new system. Very basically, Easy Transfer is installed and run on your existing old drive and system to create one huge file with all the required info. Then you do your new install. After the Win 7 system is running you hook up the drive with the Easy Transfer file on it. Then you run that same tool, already built into Win 7, to copy your old stuff to your new drive.

The tutorial page points out that the Easy Transfer tool makes one VERY large file, so if your old HDD is pretty full you should seriously consider getting an external hard drive unit that does have the required space.

With this in mind, I suggest this sequence.
1. Download / install Windows Easy Transfer on your old system. Choose a device and place to put the big file of existing stuff. Run Easy Transfer and make that file.
2. Build new computer with new SATA HDD but do NOT install your old IDE drive in it. If you bought an external drive unit for the transfer stuff, don't connect that up, either. Install Win 7 on the new machine, do all your updates, etc.
3. Install all your applications software in the new machine under Win 7. Update them as needed.
4. Connect your old IDE drive in the new machine and let Win 7 find it and give it a name, ready to use.
5. If the Easy Transfer file is not on the IDE dive - if it's on an external unit - connect that up. Now run the Easy Transfer tool built into Win 7 to retrieve all that old data and settings file stuff onto your new Win 7 system.
6. Use the finished system for a while. Don't change anything really significant on the old IDE drive until you are SURE all your old stuff was transferred, and you need NOTHING preserved on the old IDE drive.
7. As a last step, use Windows Disk Management to completely clean off the old IDE drive. By that I mean, Delete all its existing Partitions, then Create a new Primary Partition that is NOT bootable, and Format it so you can use it as a storage device.
 
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