Windows 7 Clean, Update, Custom, Migrate!? Makes My Head Hurt!

[BobHelms]

OK, I now have a new laptop running Vista Ultimate 32, and an extra (as per tblount) HDD. My W7 Upgrade is "In The Mail". I want to end up with W7 Ultimate 64 with 2 partitions. Hardware specs are 3.06GHz Duo 2 T9900 processor, 8GB memory & 320GB HDD. There are no apps on the Vista system except all the "bloat ware" that came with it. I have created product recovery DVD's from the Vista system and that drive is 'expendable'. I've read Paul Thurrott's (SuperSite for Windows) directions many times but he starts with a HDD containing Vista and doesn't mention migrate which (I think) I need to do. So I'm in a "which way do I go from here" dilemma. I will (hopefully) reinstall all my apps from my XP laptop and migrate the data once W7 is up. TIA for any help and direction(s) provided.
Bob Helms
BTW tblount - You were right, dual boot ain't the best way to go, disk are cheap.

 

[reghakr]

I would install Vista on the smaller of the two drives.

Then insert the Windows 7 ISO and perform a "clean" install to the other hard drive.

If you don't get the boot menu after installing, you'll need to get into the BIOS and change the second hard drive listed to the top position so it can boot from it.

If you're an advanced user you can download Gparted and delete all your partitions (after saving all the information you need to a flash drive and create a partition of about 50GB for the Vista installation and 70 GB for the Windows 7 install. If you do not create any more partition in GParted, just go to Start > Run, and type diskmgmt.msc and you can format your unallocated space and new drive letters will be created.

The reason I use GParted is because you can't shrink the size of the partition any more than half the drives capacity.

You can download GParted here:
GParted -- Download

You need to burn that ISO also.

 

[BobHelms]

I would install Vista on the smaller of the two drives.

Then insert the Windows 7 ISO and perform a \"clean\" install to the other hard drive.

If you don't get the boot menu after installing, you'll need to get into the BIOS and change the second hard drive listed to the top position so it can boot from it.

If you're an advanced user you can download Gparted and delete all your partitions (after saving all the information you need to a flash drive and create a partition of about 50GB for the Vista installation and 70 GB for the Windows 7 install. If you do not create any more partition in GParted, just go to Start > Run, and type diskmgmt.msc and you can format your unallocated space and new drive letters will be created.

The reason I use GParted is because you can't shrink the size of the partition any more than half the drives capacity.

You can download GParted here:
GParted -- Download

You need to burn that ISO also.

reghakr,
Thanks for your reply. Vista came / is preloaded on the laptop. Is the 'ISO' you're referring to the same thing as the media I'll be getting from the Windows 7 Upgrade program? All the hard drives I'm planning to use (including the existing Vista OS) are 7200 RPM SATA 320GB. In the end there will only be 1 (W7) drive in the boot position. I apologize if I didn't make all that info clear in my first post. I already have Easeus Partition Master. Would any of those details affect your recommendations? Thanks again.
Bob Helms

 

[reghakr]

Hello Bob,

No I'm sorry, I missed the fact that you said it would be arriving in the mail.

So you can just put the Windows 7 disk in and choose the correct partition on the correct drive.

It will give you sizes so you should be able to figure it out.

Of course perform a "clean" install