Want to format but win 7 is Upgrade from Vista

[dai_katana]

I have a Win 7 OS on my laptop but I had Vista before and got the Win 7 through an "upgrade" disc and key that came with it.

I want to format the HDD and reinstall my OS but I don't have any OS discs other than the upgrade disc for win 7 (i.e. i dont have the vista OS disc seeing as it was pre-installed on the laptop and is on OEM version; no recovery discs were provided).

How do I go about it? Would my upgrade disc and key work if I were to use them right after formatting?

 

[hedwar2011]

As long as you haven't changed the motherboard you can do a clean reinstall by booting to the upgrade CD.

You can find more information in regards to the different versions of Windows 7 HERE.

 

[dai_katana]

As long as you haven't changed the motherboard you can do a clean reinstall by booting to the upgrade CD.

You can find more information in regards to the different versions of Windows 7 HERE.

Thank you for your reply and the link to the post above. I could not find any information under the upgrade version of Windows 7 that states I can do what you said though. I will not have a chance to "go back" in any way so need to be sure (hope you don't misunderstand) as I will be using Darik's Boot and N to clear the data on it... So you are saying that if there are no hardware changes, I am good to go and the upgrade disc will work after inserting the disc after I have wiped the drive clean?

(It does say that my new licence is valid and the old one no longer works (which means that I cannot use the Vista key printed on the underside of my laptop anymore to re-install Vista and then upgrade to Win 7) but it also says that I can move my Win 7 upgrade licence to another computer as well... )

 

[dai_katana]

Best answer selected by dai_katana.

 

[JDFan]

Yep you'll be fine using the Upgrade disk to do a clean install -- It may not activate automatically but the phone activation process will work - (If it fails and you are connected to a live rep they will merely ask for the key from the original VISTA and the upgrade key and after you give them those they will provide a new activation code for you to enter - though chances are the phone activations automated computer will activate the install without the need to actually talk to anyone !)

Just follow this tutorial on using the upgrade media to do a clean install.