Will a clean install wipe my partitons

[rishiswaz]

I have a drive with 2 partitions 450GB each and a 100GB partition which I use for files shared on a SVN. Currently I am using windows 7 home premium but I just got Ultimate from a friend who gave it to me as a gift. Can I install ultimate on one of the partitions and leave the rest untouched? I have important files like documents/spreadsheets for work and family photos on my primary hard drive that currently has home premium, I use the other partition for easy organization of all my games. So my question is that is there a way for me to install ultimate on that second 450GB partition and then delete windows boot files and everything from the other one to make ultimate the only bootable partition? If not then are there any cheap external drives, preferably eSATA, that I can use because I am on a budget?

 

[RetiredChief]

Why not just instal the Windows 7 Ult over the top of your current windows 7, Just like doing a upgrade. And No this would not mess up your current parttions.

If you opt to install the Windows 7 Ult to a different partition, first remove files to a different partition as windows, while it will not mess up the partitions will wipe out current files on the partition that it is installed to. You will end up with a daul boot system and when you get ready to delete the old win 7 OS you may have to "fix" the now broken daul boot.

 

[rishiswaz]

Why not just instal the Windows 7 Ult over the top of your current windows 7, Just like doing a upgrade. And No this would not mess up your current parttions.

If you opt to install the Windows 7 Ult to a different partition, first remove files to a different partition as windows, while it will not mess up the partitions will wipe out current files on the partition that it is installed to. You will end up with a daul boot system and when you get ready to delete the old win 7 OS you may have to "fix" the now broken daul boot.

I asked my friend about that and he said it had to be a clean install and how would I "fix" the broken dual boot?

 

[RetiredChief]

1) On broken Software daul boot, not sure as I never do that, in all my systems that have daul boot I place the Operating systems on seperate HDDs and use the key (F12) to bring up the boot menu

Should only need a clean install if moving from 32 bit windows 7 to 64 bit windows 7.
Besides, No Biggy even if you did a "clean" install over the old win 7. Just copy your "favorite Folder", My Document folder, and your email folder to a temp directory on one of the other partitions, then after your win 7 Ult is installed just copy back.

 

[PMentior]

You can use the Windows Anytime Upgrade feature if you are moving to a higher version. I have done this with my laptop. It came with Home Premium and I had a spare Pro key laying around. Just run Anytime Upgrade and select enter a key and use the key you have for Ultimate.