Upgrading from 32bit XP to windows 7 32bit OR 64bit

well my dad just got the 3Xlicensing pack of windows 7 I got to install it to his working laptop and home laptop both were vista 32 and 64 bit and went through flawlessly without a problem. But for my PC which is a 32bit XP all the hardware is 64bit capable - at least for xp/vista

specs: Intel Core 2 Duo E6600 2.4GHZ CPU

EVGa 260 GTX
ASUS 680i P5N32-SLI Motherboard
320 GB Hitachi HDD
2X2GB Corsair 800mhz memory

I really want to upgrade to 64bit windows 7 but after lots of restarting and googling i couldnt find a procedure that i felt comfortable doing so i fell back to the 32bit one and it would install all the way up til it did its first reboot and it gets stuck in "starting windows" and turns to BSOD with the OXOOOOO7B (i dont know if the number of 0's is correct i just know it was 7B at the end) this happened both times, I even took out 1 stick of ram to make it 2gigs in my PC since i saw a random forum post of that solving one of the problems. I am ready to lose all data i have, i already put any photo/documents i need on a flash drive so i dont mind reformatting it. But i would like to know if I really do need to format the HDD then put the installation CD in? any help even ideas are much appreciated thank you.

should i do the cmd prompt to wipe my drive? the "format c/:" (cant remember the exact command) or do i put in my old XP installation disk and do reformat and stop after it partition the drive?

Since a clean install is necessary, format the drive with the Windows 7 disk. There are slight differences in the versions of the NTFS file systems that XP applies when it formats a hard drive, and when 7 does it.

The drive partitioning wizard is one of the first steps in the setup process... how did you not see it?

k going back to the steps first from when im in XP and trying to install i dont see any format option available even under custom install.

when i boot from start up, i do custom again and i see the format option extend.....and new.....but i dont see my HDD anymore. so im stump at the moment lol.

well only problem with that is i dont get to choose any device to install the OS on and whenever i do get to see my HDD it doesnt give me the reformat option, i think my only way is to go through custom install if im on an XP. is it my hard drive thats not compatible? its only 2-3 years old tho.

Well i just got the error message 0X00000007B after going through phase 1 of installation so im guessing its my disk controller/drivers i've already reformatted and deleted and put a new partition for the hard drive and started over with XP recovery disk. anyone have tips on how to solve the '7B error screen

Asterick,

TheViper is correct -- you cannot upgrade from a 32-bit operating system to a 64-bit. The architectures are simply incompatible. For more information on 32-bit vs. 64-bit architecture please go to the following link: http://bit.ly/2aT3xP

Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team

*Sigh*

When dealing with Windows XP, a clean install is the ONLY option... regardless of 32-bit or 64-bit. No, you cannot do an in-place upgrade from a 32-bit OS to a 64-bit OS, but you can still upgrade to 64-bit. However, even if you use 32-bit Windows 7... a clean install is still your only option when upgrading from Windows XP. The best thing to do right now is to get Windows XP reinstalled and activated. Then, use the 64-bit Windows 7 DVD to do a custom install. You CANNOT use the upgrade to perform a clean installation on a blank hard drive... you have to purchase the full retail or OEM versions.

You CAN upgrade to 64-bit, you just can't do an in-place upgrade. (You can't with 32-bit either with XP). Saying simply that you "can't upgrade from 32-bit to 64-bit" isn't giving the OP complete information.

Your wording suggested he couldn't upgrade to 64-bit at all. Even if he's upgrading to 32-bit Win 7 from XP though... he still needs to do a clean install... there is no in-place upgrade option from XP to 7.

As an aside, I saw 7B when installing XP a couple of years back. Had to do with the IDE cable connected to the DVD drive and an ASUS mobo (P5LD2 rev 1.2). Moved the cable to a different IDE port. Crazy hardware messing with my software.

Good luck.

Doesn't appear to me he didn't know he couldn't install Win 7 64 bit as he immediately began asking about the clean install options.

I'm not misunderstanding what you misunderstood about what he misunderstood!

LOL, be happy folks! We're all here to help each other and this thread has good information for those, like me, looking to move from 32bit XP to 64bit Win7. The discussion touched on all the issues and I'm glad so many are knowledgable on the subject.

I'm still trying to figure out if the upgrade to Win7 from my upgrade to WinXP from Win95 will ask for my WinXP CD or need to see an activated copy on a HD.

OK thanks. So as long as my boot partition is there and ready to be over-written, all is well. But if I want to install the Win7 Upgrade on a clean/blank drive for testing, it might want to "see" my old boot drive? Anyone run across this yet?