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Formatting hard drive

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Hello. . . I have a dell inspiron 531 AMD Athlon 64x2 5000+ @ 2.60 Ghz
4.00 gb ram, 32-bit windows vista home edition.

I am currently running a geforce GTS 450 superclocked 1024 MB card.

I want to upgrade this computer by taking everything out and puting it in a different case (big
ger). I have vista now, but on the new computer i am building, i want windows 7. These are the upgrades i want to add:








Since I am changing the motherboard, my questions are:

1. what are the steps to reformatting my hard drive so i can use it and retrieve my data on the new rig? (is there an app on windows vista that would help me?)

2. Should i get windows 7 32 or 64 for gaming?

3. can i use dvd's to back up my hard drive?

Thank you

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mikaelspears said:
Hello. . . I have a dell inspiron 531 AMD Athlon 64x2 5000+ @ 2.60 Ghz
4.00 gb ram, 32-bit windows vista home edition.

I am currently running a geforce GTS 450 superclocked 1024 MB card.

I want to upgrade this computer by taking everything out and puting it in a different case (big
ger). I have vista now, but on the new computer i am building, i want windows 7. These are the upgrades i want to add:








Since I am changing the motherboard, my questions are:

1. what are the steps to reformatting my hard drive so i can use it and retrieve my data on the new rig? (is there an app on windows vista that would help me?)

2. Should i get windows 7 32 or 64 for gaming?

3. can i use dvd's to back up my hard drive?

Thank you

Best solution

Storage Expert

You can do an in place upgrade from vista to 7 without having to reinstall anything depending on the version of vista you have and the version of win 7 you upgrade to.

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/help/upgrad... (see tab "step 1")

http://www.winsupersite.com/article/windows-7/upgrading...

Otherwise, you will need to do a clean install of windows 7. Be sure that only the drive you will install win 7 onto is installed when you install win 7. After installation, you can attach remaining drives and copy the old data from it. You will however have to reinstall your programs and games.

You may also want to run the upgrade advisor first.

http://windows.microsoft.com/upgradeadvisor

mikaelspears said:

2. Should i get windows 7 32 or 64 for gaming?

3. can i use dvd's to back up my hard drive?


Go for Windows 7 64-bit, its compatible with most games. It will not be compatible with 16-bit games, since 64-bit Windows does not support 16-bit programs. Those 16-bit games are over a decade old, so its unlikely anyone plays them except for nostalgic reasons. However, you can run those games in DosBox or a virtual machine. 64-bit Windows also allows you access to all of your 8 GB RAM, and has good driver support.

Backing up your hard-drive is best done to another hard-drive (internal or external). Not only is it faster, but it also doesn't limit you to 4 GB per disc.

Since you're changing significant hardware components, I'd recommend you do a format of your OS partition and clean reinstall. Ensure that your data & personal stuff has been backed up (preferably to an external disk).
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