Installing Vista

[staRang]

Installing Vista…

Okay, so… I picked up a copy of Vista Ultimate yesterday. It’s been a long time since I’ve installed a new OS.

My question, is: Do I need to back-up all my personal files? Basically, I have two drives… well, three really. My main drive is partioned to C and D. Also, I have a slave which is drive E. Drive E is primarily movie/DVD files (VOB’s, etc), and on drive D, I have most of my MP3’s and pictures.

Will I need to back all these up? Or will the new install not touch them?
Also… what will happen to my programs?

The C drive is only partioned w/ like 15GB, so, I only have system files in there and shit… But, most of my programs are all stored on the D drive.

Thanks in advance.

[amo]

I would say backup anyways. If something goes wrong, you dont want to lose your stuff. Just a safe practice.

If you install OVER your current windows you should be ok, if you reformat than you will lose everything on the drive. I have not installed vista so I dont know the specifics on the install process.

But as I stated earlier, just back up anyways :teeth

[Sane_Man]

Originally posted by staRang
Installing Vista…

Okay, so… I picked up a copy of Vista Ultimate yesterday. It’s been a long time since I’ve installed a new OS.

My question, is: Do I need to back-up all my personal files? Basically, I have two drives… well, three really. My main drive is partioned to C and D. Also, I have a slave which is drive E. Drive E is primarily movie/DVD files (VOB’s, etc), and on drive D, I have most of my MP3’s and pictures.

Will I need to back all these up? Or will the new install not touch them?
Also… what will happen to my programs?

The C drive is only partioned w/ like 15GB, so, I only have system files in there and shit… But, most of my programs are all stored on the D drive.

Thanks in advance.

You have barely have enough space to install Vista on the C drive, so you may want to consider using one of your other drives. It needs 15 Gb of space to install all the files for the installation.

It won't touch the files on your other drives, but you need to have backups of your data anyway, if you want to keep them if a drive ever fails.

Your programs will show up in Vista if you use the C drive. It doesn't matter what drive the programs actually reside on. If you install on a different drive, you will need to reinstall ALL of your programs.

[MeisI]

If i were you, I'd throw everything worth saving on your D partition on to your E drive.

Reformat the primary HDD (C and D partitions) as one partition. Install vista on there. Move files from E partition accordingly.

I never ran the 'upgrade' install from xp->vista, only have done fresh formats. I recall reading mixed reviews on the program functionality post 'upgrade' over fresh format.

Is there any real reason why you don't want to re-install your programs?

[staRang]

Okay... So... You guys were correct. It won't let me "upgrade" because my C portion is too small. So, it wants to do a clean install.

I don't have a problem re-installing stuff, other than the fact that I'm lazy and was trying to save some time.

So, I'll just put all my MP3 and movie files on the slave drive and do a clean install. That's cool, right?

Thanks guys.

[Sane_Man]

That will work.

It will leave you with a dual-boot configuration, except you will have to re-install your apps for Vista.

[Robert R1]

With Vista, dont' do an upgrade of any sort. Do a clean install. If need be, run a dual boot but avoid upgrades.

[staRang]

Thanks again. I'll let you guys know how it goes... or not... maybe it'll just blow up my system. We'll see...