Windows 7 will win 7 recognize partitions created by win xp?

[John Loo]

my win xp dies and am planning to install win 7. I will install it on my c disk and erase the dead xp but leave the existing d disk created by win xp as it is. My concern is whether win 7 can read disk d just like win xp does. This is quite important as d disk is my data disk and I cannot afford to lose anything on it.

 

[ussnorway]

I'd replace the hdd to be sure but yes w7 should be fine with seeing old xp formatted drives.

 

[John Loo]

Thanks, the best is indeed to back up the whole d drive and then install win 7 on c, but I don't have a backup hard disk large enough to hold them, so I might have to take the risk.

More specifically I was concerned whether the file tree structure or the entrance of d drive has had any traces recorded on disk c to help the operation system to correctly read files on d. If so, after reinstalling the operation system this information would be erased thus causing trouble to access d drive again. As far as file format itself is concerned, I also think fat32 would be recognized by win 7.

 

[ussnorway]

As long as the old c drive is in front of the d part of the disc, yes installing w7 over the old xp will leave the d working... ntfs would be better for a storage drive but yes fat32 is recognized by w7 fine.

To be clear, the d drive is storage only... any programs installed on it will not work after the w7 install unless you re-install them (the programs) again.