Does Double Install On Fresh Hardware For Windows 7 Still Work? Help!

[NaryaMithrandir]

Hi guys,

Motherboard fried, so got a brand new system, with SSD. However, old xp installation is on the SATA drive. I'm fresh installing Windows 7 Pro from Upgrade media onto the SSD.

What I've done so far:

1. Installed Win 7, (custom option) without entering the product key.

2. Just updated all the drivers and many many many window's updates.

3. Now re-inserted the Win 7 DVD and chose Upgrade.


Will entering the product key work this time? I'd already done it once before and it didn't.

I do have a copy of Win XP with the product key, however, it's for a win32 system, and this Win 7 is 64bit. I'm hoping that having the old sata drive connected, which contains the winXP installation, will somehow atleast validate it, if this double install won't. I don't know...

Help? Advice?

Thanks!

 

[geofelt]

It should still work.

If the XP drive had been attached, the upgrade would have detected it and activated the upgrade install.
It also would have tried to put a 100mb recovery file on the XP drive, which you probably did not want.

Your process was correct.
The first install gave you a working W7, valid for 30 days.

The second should have done an upgrade, and I think you will still need to reapply fixes and drivers.

 

[nikorr]

This is the most easy solution http://www.winsupersite.com/article/win7/clean-install-windows-7-with-upgrade-media

 

[NaryaMithrandir]

It should still work.

If the XP drive had been attached, the upgrade would have detected it and activated the upgrade install.
It also would have tried to put a 100mb recovery file on the XP drive, which you probably did not want.

Your process was correct.
The first install gave you a working W7, valid for 30 days.

The second should have done an upgrade, and I think you will still need to reapply fixes and drivers.

THANKS! It did work.

But suddenly after upgrade completed and I landed on the desktop, the screen showed an nVidia error and the screen went black. I rebooted, and it said that no nvidia card was found, and the Lucid's Virtu can't run without it so it shut down.

I just inserted the VGA cards driver cd and it seems to be working. ANy reason why that happened?

 

[geofelt]

I don't know if you are dealing with integrated graphics, or a discrete Nvidia card.

If you have both, you need to select the proper boot adapter in the bios.

Regardless, you need to install the driver so that the minitor will display in something other than basic mode(640x320 or so)
The motherboard driver cd would have the integrated driver, and I would download a discrete driver directly from Nvidia.
Be certain to get the one appropriate for w7 and 64 bit