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

John Loo

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