Converting from Windows 7 to Windows XP

[rougeole]

Hello, I have a blown eMachines 750Gb Seagate Hard drive. Every time I turn it on, sometimes it will load windows 7 and sometimes it will ask for an installation disk. I am running Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit. This is a family members computer and unfortunately they did not burn any Backup and Recovery disks and this machine came already pre-loaded with Windows 7 Home Premium 64 bit.

I downloaded and burned to a DVD a Windows 7 64 bit ISO file so I could upgrade Windows 7, but alas it tells me that the version on the hard drive is newer than the upgrade and won't let me upgrade.

So now my next choice was to cloned my Windows XP SP3 32 bit hard drive to a new Western Digital 750Gb hard drive. The eMachines motherboard doesn't recognize the 32 bit version and therefore will not load windows XP. It just keeps rebooting.

Both the bad hard drive and the new hard drive are SATA's. Since I am sacrificing all the programs on the old drive (ie: MS Office 2010, etc), because I am now frustrated that I can't get Windows 7 upgraded, my cloned drive with Windows XP has office 2003 on it and I am able to use that all the time on my other mechine. Suggestions anyone?

 

[cl-scott]

If you have burned the Windows 7 ISO to a disc, then just boot from that and try and do a recovery of the OS. Worst case scenario is you reinstall the entire OS. You'll likely lose programs that route, but at least it is up and running.

You can also contact Acer about trying to get recovery media for your eMachines unit. They won't likely be free, but not unreasonable. Typical prices range from $20-$50US for this sort of thing.

 

[rougeole]

If you have burned the Windows 7 ISO to a disc, then just boot from that and try and do a recovery of the OS. Worst case scenario is you reinstall the entire OS. You'll likely lose programs that route, but at least it is up and running.

You can also contact Acer about trying to get recovery media for your eMachines unit. They won't likely be free, but not unreasonable. Typical prices range from $20-$50US for this sort of thing.

Thanks, CL. I did finally just do a new install from the burnt disk to a NEW SATA hard drive. I then loaded my ms office 2003 full version and copied the files, pictures, etc. that I was able to save to my computer before the bad drive finally bit the dust. So, all is well again.