Win Xp 32-bit to Win 7 64-bit Question

[MUFC4ever]

Am looking at upgrading my homebuilt PC to Windows 7 (64 bit), from current Windows XP (32 bit).

Will accomplish this by installing Windows 7 (64 bit) to a new boot hard drive (WD VelociRaptor 150GB 10k RPM) being added to the PC.

I don't really plan on utilizing the dual boot capability, but am wondering if there will be any visibility issues reading from the existing Windows XP (32 bit) drive or running any of the programs on it - when logged in under the Windows 7 (64 bit) environment.

And if there are any other 32 to 64 bit issues or considerations I should be aware, any feedback will be welcomed.

Note the existing Windows XP (32 bit) boot drive is actually 2 Seagate 320 GB hard drives RAID 1 mirrored at the motherboard/bios level using NVIDIA Media Shield. Doubt if that is a factor, but figured it was worth mentioning.

 

[treefrog07]

If you add the HDD and load Win7 on it, you will have a dual-boot system, with Win7 your default OS (you can change that if you wish). You won't be able to run the programs on your XP installation, until you install them on Win7. You will be able to access most files and folders in the XP HDD; some folders and files are "not acessible" in Win7 for security reasons.

 

[foscooter]

32 vs 64-bit is not apart of the hard drives, it's part of how the OS "thinks."

Hard drives are either FAT, FAT32, or NTFS. Yours probable NTFS.

To avoid any "dual-boot" problems, unplug the old drive while installing the OS to the new drive. If you don't, you'll have big problems.

Plug the new drive into the first port, and set accordingly in BIOS, and install Win7 64. Then plug your RAID setup back in, and setup BIOS accordingly, and RAID, if you still want RAID. Since you are RAID1, you shouldn't loose any info, as it'll be one both drives.

I'd ditch the RAID 1 array anyway, and RAID 1 does not replace backups.

Use the 2 drives as a data/media drive and a backup drive.

 

[MUFC4ever]

Thanks for the feedback, it confirms what I had presumed.

Btw this is a 4 year old build and my existing Win XP hard drives are NTFS.

Since I don't really want/need dual boot capability going forward , I will go with unplugging the old drives when doing the Win 7 install.

And then ditch the RAID setup when I plug them back in since one of them appears to failing anyways, as I am getting a degraded warning on boot up.

There is not a great quantity of purchased/canned software installed currently being used - so it should not be that big of a deal to re-load what is needed on the new Win 7 drive.

 

[jimmysmitty]

If you add the HDD and load Win7 on it, you will have a dual-boot system, with Win7 your default OS (you can change that if you wish). You won't be able to run the programs on your XP installation, until you install them on Win7. You will be able to access most files and folders in the XP HDD; some folders and files are "not acessible" in Win7 for security reasons.

Thats easy to fix. All he has to do is take ownership of the folders and files. We do that all the time here at work when a person had XP and bought a new PC/laptop with 7 and want to transfer their documents/pictures. We just plug their old drive into the machine and take ownership of the files then transfer them into their respective place. Pretty simple:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Troubleshoot-access-denied-when-opening-files-or-folders

This could occur for the following reasons:

•Some of your user account information has changed, even though your user name and password have not changed. You might be able to resolve the problem by taking ownership of the folder.

To take ownership of a folder
1.Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.

2.Click the Security tab, click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.

3.Click Edit. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type the password or provide confirmation.

4.Click the name of the person you want to give ownership to.

5.If you want that person to be the owner of files and subfolders in this folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.

6.Click OK.

•You are trying to access folders that have been renamed or moved in this version of Windows.

Many folders that were used in previous versions of Windows have been renamed or moved to a new location in this version. These folders are hidden by default but can be viewed if you show hidden files and folders. These folders cannot be opened, moved, or deleted; they serve only as a pointer to the new location. The contents of the folders have been put in the new location in Windows Vista. The following table shows a list of commonly used folders' previous and new locations.

Folder location in Windows XP
New location in Windows Vista

\Documents and Settings
\Users

\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents
\Users\user name\Documents

\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents\My Pictures
\Users\user name\Pictures

\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents\My Music
\Users\user name\Music

\Documents and Settings\user name\My Documents\My Videos
\Users\user name\Videos

\Documents and Settings\user name\Desktop
\Users\user name\Desktop

\Documents and Settings\user name\Local Settings
\Users\user name\AppData\Local

 

[MUFC4ever]

Thanks for the additional info

 

[MUFC4ever]

Best answer selected by MUFC4ever.