Win7 Clean Install = A Whopping 84.6GB

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

A few days ago I finally went ahead and did a clean install of Win7 from Vista. After much wrangling about partitioning, I simply decided to put Win7 right on C\ where Vista was located. All the info on installing said that everything would be wiped clean automatically by Win7.

Right off the bat I ran into problems (of a sort). The install is moving along as it should until the 1st black/white screen appears and says basically press any key to boot from CD or DVD; Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart. I kept pressing keys but the screen wouldn't go away (to continue on with the install). So I hit re-start (C-A-D) and was eventually brought back to the b/w 'continue' screen. After a few times looping, I decided to shut down the PC manually. When I rebooted, the Win7 DVD started the install all over again.

Long story short - I finally hit a key immediately as soon as the "press any key..." script started to scroll out. That worked. Who was to know that you had to hit a key lickety-split like that. It was never that way in the past.

Part of the reason that W7 came in with so many GBs is that W7 makes copies of your old system (or most of it). In C\ now are two folders called .OLD.
One is Windows.old (38.2GB) and Windows.old.000 (8.14GB). I also added my old T-Bird email (3.73GB) and a MUSIC folder (6.67GB) from the external storage drives.

So when you deduct the .old folders and the ones I added, W7 appears to take up 27.86GB.

It still seems like a lot GBs for W7.

I'm not sure if I double or triple installed W7. Is this possible? Wouldn't the PC recognize what's been installed already?

Ubuntu, Myst, and BIAB all showed up, too, in W7 C\.

Also, the b/w Windows Boot Manager screen that got installed when I first tried out the Ubuntu CD is still with me. It still lists Vista (and Ubuntu) as choices.

Another quirk is, I tried out Solitaire just to poke around, and the default card faces on the opening hand showed a new design - floral and lanscapes. But when you go in Change Appearance, none o9f the card options in there display this new option. All options were from Vista.

Nothing is going back easy when it comes to applications. A couple went easy, others are still pending.

Here's a view of W7's pie usage chart.

_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Jack Stoner · From: Kansas City, MO

My Windows 7 (the actual Windows folder) is only 13.8GB.

What you are seeing? With Ubuntu installed and I can't tell what else that tells me you DID NOT do a complete clean install. If you did a "clean" install that means reformatting the hard drive and then start all over by installing Windows 7, then the motherboard chipset drivers (in most cases) then the Vista/Windows 7 device drivers. Then install your printer and scanner or whatever you have (and that needed to be physically disconnected before you start the install). Then your user applications.

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Jack,

So your 13GB looks about half of my 27GB. Maybe it is a double install.

I know something is wrong.

Where do I find the reformat section in W7?

I thought I could just dump W7 on C drive? Why didn't W7 wipeout existing Vista?

Isn't the whole C drive one big partition?

Confused

_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Storm Rosson · From: Silver City, NM. USA

you should have hit drive options(during setup) when the drive screen came up, and deleted all of the existing partitions, if the drive needs to be formated the "format" feild will be enabled, if not then hit next and win7 will remap(quick format) the drive as it begins to install.That is how to do a clean install. Winking

...def whatMitch says below, only hit a key 1 time(the first install screen)to boot from the dvd.You can go to the MS website and find the hand-holding guide to installalation also.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

When you see that "press any key" stuff during a Windows install, the proper response is to not press anything. Pressing something apparently caused the install to begin again.

That's why you have 2 Windows.old folders. You should have only one.

The only reason you have ANY Windows.old folders is likely because you began the install from Vista--you were in Vista, put the Win 7 DVD in the drive, and began the install.

If you had instead booted directly from the DVD, without starting from Vista, you would not have ended up with Windows.old. Windows.old should contain everything that was at one time on your Vista partition, but since you have stuff backed up elsewhere, you don't need it.

Were I you, and I'm not, I would boot directly from the DVD and avoid Windows.old entirely. It's not a big deal if you do it the same way you did it, though. You end up with a clean install in both cases.

Were I you, I would dump that Linux, Myst, etc and get yourself out of a dual boot. Concentrate on a good clean install of Windows 7.

Dual boot situations can be difficult to get rid of with Windows 7.

A month from now, if you want to play with Linux, fine; reinstall it on your second drive then.

Best thing you can do now is disconnect the drive that will not contain Windows 7 and start over. When you have Win 7 installed, then reconnect that second drive.

When you begin the reinstall, choose "custom install" on one of the early screens. Shortly thereafter, you will see a screen showing your drives and partitions. Choose "drive options, advanced" at that point. On the next screen choose your current Vista partition (presumably C) as the destination for Win 7. That partition will then be reformatted.

During the automatic rebooting process that the installation goes through, do NOT press a key when you see that text message telling you to do so. It might reboot 3 or 4 times.

A bare install of 7 takes under 10 gigs. My 3 week old installation with over 30 apps occupies 19.7 GB.

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Thanks Storm & Mitch.

The PC (Vista) was on when I started the install. I put in the W7 DVD and clicked on the .exe option in the CD drive menu.

Up came W7. Isn't this booting from the DVD?

I cannot format or reformat C\ (W7) cuz that is where the OS now resides (according to the PC help).

So my only option is to try and put W7 back again on C\, correct?

It just looks to me right now that this install is half W7 and half Vista.

No, I don't need Windows.old. I have all pertinent things doubly backed up.

So,(I'm reading between the lines here), should I put the W7 DVD in the drive, turn off the PC, and then re-boot? I did change the primary boot drive in the BIOS from HDD to CD Drive.

I appreciate the assistance, all.

Mitch - what do you mean by disconnecting the second drive? That would now be DATA (E). It's now the old D DATA drive in Vista. Aren't C & E all part of 1 HDD? How would you disconnect it?
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

No that isn't booting from the DVD. You ran the DVD from within Vista. Just like you'd play a Jerry Byrd CD.

You said:

"I cannot format or reformat C\ (W7) cuz that is where the OS now resides (according to the PC help).

So my only option is to try and put W7 back again on C\, correct?"

Not sure I follow the above 2 sentences as the second seems to contradict the first. You most certainly can reinstall Windows 7 onto C. Fifty times if you want to.

Several weeks ago, you couldn't find how to set the DVD drive to be the first boot device. If you now have that figured out, I would:

Turn the PC off.

Open the case

Disconnect both cables from the secondary drive that has Linux, etc on it. Leaving only your Windows 7 destination drive connected.

Start the PC. Enter the bios. Confirm that the DVD drive is set as the first boot device.

If it is, continue to your Win 7 desktop.

Put the Win 7 disc in the drive.

Turn your PC off, completely.

Restart your PC.

You should immediately be presented with the Windows 7 installation menu, NOT repeat NOT your Windows desktop. If you see your Windows desktop, you did not boot from the DVD.

Choose "custom install" when you see the choice.

When you come to the partitioning screen, you should see only 1 drive.

Be careful to locate and choose the "drive options/advanced" choice on this partition screen.

The next screen should show whatever partitions you have on your only drive. If I recall correctly, that is going to be C and D? (or at least 2 partitions)

This is the point of no return.

If you have nothing on either partition that you care about or that isn't backed up elsewhere, you can just delete both partitions.

You then have to create at least 1 partition. You can create 2 if you want. It's a matter of personal choice on how you want to organize your data. I think that drive is 320 gigs. I would either go 320 in a single partition, or 2 partitions. If you choose to go with two partitions, make the first one 60. That will be the new C. Mark it as "active" whenever you see that choice. Make the second one all of the remaining space (260 gigs).

After you have deleted and created your partitions, you click next or proceed and it is pretty much hands off from there. DON"T press any keys during the reboots. Enter stuff only when it is obvious you should.

As I recall, you have an AMD processor, so you shouldn't have to worry about Intel chipset drivers.

When the install finishes, Windows will probably want to install a bunch of updates or drivers. Let it do that.

Then install your anti virus and anti spyware.

Then your backed up data, applications, printer, etc.

Windows will probably ask you if you want to activate. You can say yes or no. But you have to activate within 30 days.

Worry about your other hard drive in a few days. Get 7 going and stable first.

Storm Rosson · From: Silver City, NM. USA

Chip to do a clean install u must boot the computer from the optic (cd/dvd) drive with install win7 disk in the drive, make sure your boot order in cmos/bios is set to cd/dvd first boot device, hdd as second. Start pc, when the screen comes up hit any key to boot from cd/dvd, You only do this step once, after install begins, windows creates a temp ramdrive where it keeps necessary install files from the win7 disc, they are then moved to ram memory as needed . after the first install -auto- reboot windows does, DO NOT hit a key when the boot from cd/dvd appears. At this stage it has created a mbr on the hdd for win7 so it will boot from the hdd, buut you must leave the win7 install dvd in the drive so needed files that were not used to create the mbr(master boot record) and the ntldr (nt kernal boot loader), can be decompressed(unpacked) and used to install the rest of the os.As I stated before when u get to the install on drive screen, all the existing partitions will be displayed. Hit drive options and then point at the various partitions and if the "delete x in red " appears, then delete that partion. Repeat this until there is only 1 drive shown with no partitions, it should reflect the size of the formatted size of the hdd. The only time the format button will be available is if the drive is raw and never been formatted in a windows file format either fat or ntfs(usually only encountered on a new retail purchased hdd).After the drive partitions have been removed, then clik next and win7 will begin unpacking files to both the ramdrive it created and non-volatile ram for installation. Remember only hit a "boot from cd/dvd" key ONCE- the first time to boot from dvd. Win7 formats while the files are being extracted from the dvd so manual formating is not needed usually. Winking

...btw just call me Mitch's echo Laughing

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Just saw your comment about data drive and disconnecting a drive.

I thought your original Acer factory drive was 2 partitions on 1 drive, each about 140 gigs, with a little 10 gig recovery partition.

Then you bought a second hard drive, which you put Linux on.

I don't know exactly where you have your data stashed. It's up to you to protect it and get it backed up, preferably externally, and definitely not just with Acronis. DON"T expect Acronis to do you any good.

There is no need in the world for you to have 2 drives connected during this install. If your data is backed up to external drives, I would think you could delete your current data partition, wherever it is.

If you have a copy of data on the new internal drive, where Linux lives, that's all the more reason to disconnect it. You don't need your personal data to do a Windows install.

You disconnect a drive by pulling the cables from it. There will be 2 cables. Disconnect both. Make sure you are disconnecting the right drive.

It's silly to keep that original partition scheme on your original hard drive (10/140/140). It should be a single C of 290, or maybe 60 for C and 230 for the remainder (if you want to put your original data there, instead of on C)

Do what you can to delete that recovery partition of 10 gigs during the Windows install. It would be QUITE DIFFICULT to remove it at a later date.

Storm Rosson · From: Silver City, NM. USA

Geez Mitch those last 2 posts of ours when combined make a fairly comprehensive install win7 guide no? Maybe Wiz can do some o dat mod-magic and edit the 2 together and post'em as a kinda quick guide... Rolling Eyes

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

If you'll take a look at the pic of my drives above.

Local disk D used to be disk F. Disk D has been completely copied to an external My Book. Other things have been saved to My Book as well. All savings are all set. I know Acronis is useless because it has imaged Vista. It's on the other My Book.

I can follow your instructions. I just got goofed up in the beginning. I'll format C into 60/230 and get rid of that small recovery 10GB EIGH (or something like that). Is 60GB gonna be big enough for W7?

I never installed LINUX. I only have the created Ubuntu trial CD. That's it. I put Linux/Ubuntu on the backshelf months ago.

So actually, I don't mind cleaning up all the drives you see above. Nothing will be lost.

I will double check the BIOS for the boot order. I've taken notes here, so I'm pretty good to go (I can't use my printer just yet).

I have to go out in about an hour, so I'm gonna go at this later this evening or first thing in the morning.

Once again guys, thanks for the help, and patience (avec moi). Smile

_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Whoops. Sorry. That pic is not of the drives. I'll post it soon.
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Chip

That is a confusing pic.

go to control panel/administrative tools

then choose computer management

then choose disk managment on the left.

Take a pic of the drives that are displayed and post it.

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Here it is, Mitch.

Gotta head out for now.
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Chip:

I noted that the 10 gig EISA partition is not shown in your original picture, but is shown in the second picture.

That means it is elusive and may be difficult to delete.

You are MUCH MUCH better off getting rid of this ugly thing BEFORE you re-install 7 if possible.

First possible method: go back to disk management where you took that second picture, select that EISA partition, and see if you can just delete it with the mouse or a menu choice. May or may not work.

If it doesn't work, you need more radical surgery, as follows. Use these instructions only if you can't delete it by normal means.

Here are instructions that work in Vista and should work in Win 7.

You can't really hurt anything here because you should be willing to delete ALL partitions on this drive anyway.

Do this only after you disconnect that second drive you installed:

1. Open a command prompt as administrator. (start menu/accessories/command prompt. Right click command prompt and choose "run as administrator".

2. Run Diskpart application by typing diskpart in the command prompt.

3. In the “Diskpart” prompt, type rescan and press Enter key to re-scan all partitions, volumes and drives available.

4. Then type list disk and press Enter key to show all hard disk drives available.

5. Select the disk that contains the partition you want to remove. Chip: This will probably be disc O if you have only 1 disk connected. If it is disk 0, then type:

select disk 0 (if it happens to be disc 1, then just change the number)

press Enter key.

6. Type list partition and press Enter key to show all available and created partitions on the selected disk.

7. Select the partition to be deleted by using the following command, followed by Enter key:

select partition x

where x is the number of the EISA based recovery partition to be removed. Be careful with the number of this partition, as wrong number may get data wiped off. Chip: This EISA partition should be the smallest partition shown, around 10 GB, much smaller than any other partition on the drive.

8. Finally, type delete partition override and press Enter key.

Once the partition has been deleted, exit from Diskpart by typing exit

Wiz Feinberg · From: Mid-Michigan, USA

When this topic is finally finished I will copy the best parts into a new sticky topic and save it to the top of this forum.
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Mitch Drumm · From: Frostbite Falls, hard by Veronica Lake

Chip:

Ok; here is what you have:

Original drive has:

EISA recovery partition, 10 gigs
C: system partition, 144 gigs, this is where Win 7 is
E: "DATA", 144 gigs

Second drive you added, just one partition:

D: 233 gigs. I am guessing this is empty or near empty.

Other drives are external or DVD.

I don't know which of those partitions has your original data. Maybe C, maybe E?

I would put a copy of my data on D, the drive you added and I would then disconnect it. I assume you already have a copy on external drives.

If you do that, you can then delete all partitions (EISA, C, and E), with no worries.

After disconnecting D drive, I would try to delete EISA partition through disk management.

If that fails, try to delete EISA partition with the diskpart command as mentioned in earlier post.

If you succeed with deletion, go ahead with new Windows 7 install by booting from the Win 7 disc. Choose custom install. Go to drive options advanced when you see that choice, and delete all partitions at the next screen. If by any chance the EISA partition still appears, try to delete it here.

Then make a partition of 60 gigs and mark it active. This will be the new C.

Then make a partition of all the remaining space, circa 230 gigs. This will be the new DATA partition.

Click proceed or next and pretty much stand back through several reboots.

Storm Rosson · From: Silver City, NM. USA

if u have a floppy u could boot from an old win98/ME boot disk or a usb drive that is bootable,and has MS dos drom a win98/ME boot disk and run fdisk and remove all partitions logical and otherwise, then format the c: (hdd) using the command .....without the quotation marks..."a:(or what ever drive you are booted from) format c:(space) /u .This will low level format it in fat, then win7 on install will rewrite the fat table to ntfs. Smile

or if u have access to another pc u could hook up your hdd to it as a slave and format it from windows or using the command prompt accessory in windows, run the same format command I outlined above , using the drive letter assigned to it by the host pc ..ie. c: format (x): /U, x is the host assigned drive letter, the /U switch just means to format unconditionally Winking

.....Mitch I think the "my book" drive drive 1 in the comp manager pic is indeed an external 250 GB usb drive which has all the data on it if I read the earlier post rite. So he can just disconnect it before departitioning and low leveling the actual internal hdd eh? Since he has an external drive I see no reason ,like u, to bother with creating any extended partitions on the master hdd do you? u can delete existing files etc from existing partitions via disk management but u cannot reintegrate these simple primary partitions with the system c: without reinstalling and removeing them before or during install,I say this cause of a few probs encountered using diskpart Smile

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Good morning all,

I'm now refreshed and getting back to Win7.

Mitch, I will follow your 'updated' procedures as mentioned above.

Storm, thanks again - I don't have a floppy or means to utilize it.

Wiz - great idea, and thanks for your email input as well.

I'm gonna open the case (PC) and disconnect D drive, and get moving.
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

Mitch,

I wound up using diskpart. All your commands were right on the money and the 10GB EISA was successfully deleted (according to diskpart). I'm actually learning more about the command prompt, here, also.

So now, I'm gonna continue on with the REAL clean install.
_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

Storm Rosson · From: Silver City, NM. USA

alritey then Chip, good luck and rock on bud you'll love win7 Winking

John Cipriano · From: San Francisco

It may have already been said but just to clarify you definitely should do the format. Just deleting the partitions works but a new OS reinstall is one of the rare times you get to format your primary disk, and you should take it because it gives the disk a chance to mark any bad sectors as bad before you end up using them. Also, format as NTFS, not FAT. I'm actually surprised Windows 7 gives you that option.

Storm Rosson · From: Silver City, NM. USA

I agree totally John but win7 does the format as a defaolt batch command when u choose the custom/fresh install action it often doesn't give u the option to do a manual format, generally only if it's a raw ,never been formatted hdd, or the existing file system cannot be read by windows. It also does a basic scandisk at the first of the install when it creates the ramdrive and accessess ntldr and builds a temp mbr for the rest of the install. That's what it appears to be so far but it's new and things can change....like the glitch when trying to update from XP or do the fresh install option, at first they had the previous ver detection set to run when win7 setup started AFTER you wiped tthe existing partions and data map so there was no way for ver detection to occur, causing many peeps upgrade install code to be rejected since it had no way of knowing you had a version of windoze previously installed.....DOH!!! I think they addressed this li'l oops Very Happy

Chip Fossa · From: Monson, MA, USA (deceased)

I've been waiting to get Trend Micro up and running before I returned to the Forum.

I want to thank Mitch, Jack, Storm, and Wiz for helping me out, yet again, with what appears to be a successful clean install (you too, John).

One thing, however, and I think Storm hit on it, is that I found no way when at the format screen to make one partition 60GB and the other partition the remaining space. There were no options; simply hit 'format' and that was it. So both 'partns' are about 144GB.

The thing is, both partns are 'evident' in disk manangement, but only 1 is listed in Computer/HDD Drives. I haven't re-hooked up internal D drive yet.

_________________
Chip
Williams U-12 8X5; Keyless; Natural Blonde Laquer.

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