Installing W7 on existing system

[Aaron]

I know this has been talked about, but I just want to know a definite answer.. My broadband has been re-connected now, so I downloaded the image file. I'm going to burn it in a bit and install it. I have a spare 200Gb HD laying around which I'm going to use for it.

I just want to check if there's anything I should do so I don't bugger my existing Vista install..

I don't want to unplug the Vista drives, as its all in a RAID0 array, and I don't want to take the risk that it wont rebuild properly when I plug it all back in again!

[wonderlust]

hmmm I would have disconnected the other drives.

Not sure what W7 will do if if finds another OS

[Aaron]

Yeah exactly.. I dont really want to try it on my main system without being sure though!

What would happen if I disabled one of the raid controllers in the bios? Would that kill the array?

[mac124]

Probably the same as vista and install a dual boot set up.

[Nifty]

Yeah exactly.. I dont really want to try it on my main system without being sure though!

What would happen if I disabled one of the raid controllers in the bios? Would that kill the array?

You don't fancy trying your luck doing an upgrade over vista then?

Just plug in your spare drive, boot using the W7 disk you have made, then you should be able to partition it and install onto it. What could possibly go wrong?

Oh and first thing you should do it back up anything you can't afford to lose!!!

[Aaron]

You don't fancy trying your luck doing an upgrade over vista then?

nope.

Yeah, I think i'm just gonna clone my RAID0 array onto one of my spare 500Gb Hard drives for now, and then install onto the spare 200Gb..

The only thing that I think could go wrong would be to do with booting etc.. Unless I'm really dumb and select the wrong drive to install it onto..

[Nifty]

The only thing that I think could go wrong would be to do with booting etc.. Unless I'm really dumb and select the wrong drive to install it onto..

I've not had a problem with dual booting and I've been installing new betas of W7 quite often.
I had Vista 64, W7-32, and W7-64, all coexisting happily together across two drives. Then I formatted the drives with W7-32 and W7-64, and installed the W7-64-RC1. No problems.

Used EasyBCD to change the default OS to boot into, and it works perfectly for me.

[Monkey]

Im pretty sure ive done it before, installed debian, VISTA, XP and W7 all on one drive, without using partition magic

[Aaron]

yeah, its no worries - its all done now