New W10 Hard Drive advice, keeping W7 HD available ?

Hi.
I have W7 64 bit running on a WD 3.5” 500gb SATA internal drive, 5400RPM with 32MB Buffer, I wish to keep this drive and all its information available after a clean install of W10 64bit.

I have now purchased a new WD 1TB SATA drive, 7200RPM with 64MB buffer, on this drive I intend to put a clean install of W10 64bit. As I know from past problems there will always be problems with missing drivers etc when installing programs onto a new system, This is why I want my W7 drive available so I can copy information across if needed. However with MS licence rules I cannot have both W7 and W10 running together (Unless I want to purchase a new W10 Pro, which I don’t). I was not sure of my best options , but I was sure where to ask!

Not very knowledgeable on this but would it best to Copy my whole W7 drive to a spare HD partition? I have two external HD’s with plenty of space that I copy it to. Or, - and this may be a stupid idea but ignorance is bliss as they say – I noted, (when I formatted and partitioned into two 500GB drives on my old XP machine in readiness to install on my W7 PC) it needed to be ‘Activated’ in order to make it boot-able, so would changing my W7 HD to ‘Un-activated’ mean it would no longer boot and so I could leave it in place? Would this work in reverse if I wanted to go back to W7?

I guess life is never that easy though!

Your suggestions would be appreciated, I would also prefer to keep it as simple as possible. I have Partition Wizard to copy it, or is there something better, if so what? Should the destination partition be Logical or Primary? does it matter? That sort of thing would be a great help.

Many thanks.

Firstly you need to do an upgrade first if you don't want to buy a new license (unless you want to do this Why Activate? - Windows 10 Forums which will let you do a clean install without upgrading first).

So you could image your 7 drive to your new drive and upgrade it - leaving your old 7 drive as it is or clean install on your new drive leaving your 7 drive as it is.

Once you have 10 running you can connect your 7 HD and copy what you want. You aren't running 7 - just seeing it as an external drive so there are no issues of running 2 copies.

You should probably get the idea of "copy" out of your head---depending on exactly what you have in mind.

You say "copy information across". Can I assume you are referring to your Windows installation per se as opposed to personal data files such as pictures, videos, bookmarks, email, mp3s, letters you wrote to grandma, uninstalled versions of programs, etc?

If you want to be able to revert to your Win 7 installation indefinitely into the future, you should think in terms of "imaging" the current Win 7 installation. Imaging makes a file that by itself isn't of much use until it is "restored", at which point the drive to which it is "restored" becomes bootable. Various applications can do that.

The standard idea would be to make an image (file) and store it on one of your external drives for later restoration if needed. Treat the image file like any other valuable piece of data---back it up, protect it generally, etc. With luck you never need to restore it.

You should be able to put your existing Win 7 drive in the closet, do a clean install of Win 7 on your new drive, upgrade the new drive to Win 10, and then do a clean install of Win 10 on the new drive--------if you have a Win 7 install disc or have access to a Win 7 ISO, along with a valid Win 7 Product Key. Or do you have other plans for your existing WD 500 GB drive?

Partition Wizard is a fine tool, but it's not suitable for what I think you have in mind.

If you image, you don't need to make any more partitions. The image file is just a file like any other. You can store it wherever it will fit, perhaps in a folder called "images".

You need to provide more clarification on what you want to do. I wouldn't think "copying" anything from a Win 7 install to a Win 10 install makes much sense, unless you are referring to personal data of some type.

Thank you for your replies, clarification would help!
So, I did upgrade to W10 over my existing W7, I found problems with W10 Taskbar with icons failing to launch and other small niggles, I did activate W10 and this was registered so I would not need to reinstall W7 Pro and can do a straight Clean Install of W10 from an ISO or Creative Media Tool?

I have a retail copy of W7 64 Pro with product key.

Reading on this forum and others it would seem that a W10 clean install is more reliable than an upgraded W7~W10 install, true or not I cannot say, only that this seems the best way to do it. And after my experience I hope it will be so.

I have all my 'data' on separate external drives or backed up to external drives, my W7 is an internal drive. I will take an image but of course that has to be restored as a whole, what I am meaning and obviously did not explain clearly, is that there may be files on my W7 HD that may be needed when I re-install some of my programs later. I remember terrible times upgrading from W95~98 and installing some programs where there were lots of "Cannot find ****** (file/Driver/inf/?) error messages and then searching high and low for them.

Halasz said:

So you could image your 7 drive to your new drive and upgrade it - leaving your old 7 drive as it is or clean install on your new drive leaving your 7 drive as it is.

Once you have 10 running you can connect your 7 HD and copy what you want. You aren't running 7 - just seeing it as an external drive so there are no issues of running 2 copies.

So, by the above I should disconnect my W7 HD, then install my new W10 - which has already been activated with my system specs - to my new HD . Then reconnect my W7 HD after the new W10 install so that all files etc on the W7 HD will be available should they be needed. Once W10 is fully set up as I want and loaded with my programs, take an image of that for future use. Yes?

I have no plans for my existing W7 HD, it can happily remain as it is until I decide I to wipe it in a year or so's time when W10 is running perfectly (He hopes!)

ignatzatsonic said:

Partition Wizard is a fine tool, but it's not suitable for what I think you have in mind.

From my post above what would you recommend? If I need anything at all that is......

Apologies for being a bit slow but I would rather take it slow and make sure I understand what I am doing rather than screw it up altogether.....

Trapper said:

So, by the above I should disconnect my W7 HD, then install my new W10 - which has already been activated with my system specs - to my new HD . Then reconnect my W7 HD after the new W10 install so that all files etc on the W7 HD will be available should they be needed. Once W10 is fully set up as I want and loaded with my programs, take an image of that for future use. Yes?

Yes exactly. Just take out the old drive, put in the new and do a clean install from USB/DVD. Don't enter any key during the installation - you are already activated. When 10 is to you liking make an image. Macrium Reflect Free is a good tool but there are plenty. You needn't image 7 as you are keeping the drive as is.

If you want you can copy things from the old drive later (although you shouldn't need any drivers like before) and should you want to go back to seven just swap the drives around again - i.e. take out 10 and put in 7.

Trapper wrote:

I guess life is never that easy though!

Looks like it could be after all .

Thanks halasz, that's brilliant, never thought for one moment it could be that simple .