OS on a new harddrive

[Leavit]

I currently have winxp32bit on my harddrive with all of the 500 gb of shit i really need to survive. I want to upgrade to win7-64bit to fully utilize my 6gb of memory.


So my question is: Can i install a new OS(win7) on another hdd. Use that OS to access my shit (programs also) that is installed on the old drive in the(winxp)?

 

[TheWinterSnow]

With most programs you will have to reinstall them on the new drive, that is unless you are very good at registry hacking (transferring registry data of the programs from the old drive to the new one). You will be able to acess files of those progrms from the other drive, but the program itself needs a registry entry on the new drive.

 

[Leavit]

ait. Thank you!

 

[LeSedna]

In my experience, unless you're good at it, you will be faster by reinstalling everything from scratch. Anyway, with windows, always a better idea IMO.

 

[Leavit]

In my experience, unless you're good at it, you will be faster by reinstalling everything from scratch. Anyway, with windows, always a better idea IMO.

Yeah, i'm not very awesome at hacking anyway. I'm going to copy every file i have that is important and throw my old drive away.
I am going to reinstall the programs.

The feeling of a brand new expensive installed OS is always very refreshing

 

[Ensi]

In my experience, unless you're good at it, you will be faster by reinstalling everything from scratch. Anyway, with windows, always a better idea IMO.

+1

Also, don't expect everything to work, just keep that in the back of your head.

 

[JamieK]

Yeah, i've done this twice now (once from xp to win7 32bit, then from win7 32bit to 64bit)
It's so much easier installing everything from scratch, and I think it keeps everything tidier as well.

What I did is do a clean install of everything, then transferred all my data from my older dive to the new one, and then wiped the old one completely.
So I ended up with a spare drive for whatever I need it for.