Installing Win 10

[Welshjim]

I am going to show appalling ignorance.

I run Win 7 Ultimate SP1. I have not "updated" to Win 10, but probably eventually will want to.

I have a second, spare hard drive (500 GB) installed in this PC but it is totally unused (Healthy, Primary partition.).

I assume installing Win 10 on the hard drive containing my present installation of Win 7 and all personal files, programs, etc will wipe everything. Is that correct?

How would I go about installing Win 10 on that drive? Should I use that drive?

Or should I use the unused, spare hard drive?

Would someone be willing to explain the plus and minus of the two alternatives? And then walk me through the procedure ? Or direct me to a good reference?

For example can I transfer my personal data (from a backup) to the Win 10 drive whichever drive I use for its installation? I gather I must install all programs again in either case. Is that correct?

[Midknyte]

I assume installing Win 10 on the hard drive containing my present installation of Win 7 and all personal files, programs, etc will wipe everything. Is that correct?

If you do a clean (custom) install, then yes.

How would I go about installing Win 10 on that drive? Should I use that drive?
Or should I use the unused, spare hard drive?

If anything, you would use the spare drive. Do NOT use a drive with important data! Win10 is still in beta.

I suppose you could restore your backup to the spare drive first and then try an upgrade install of Win10.

What are you trying to get out of this? Do you want to be a beta tester or are you just curious about Win10?

[Train]

Normally, I go to the trouble of disconnecting my main hdd and install on a secondary drive. Worth the trouble in my book.

If you leave the main hdd connected and install to the second one, Win 10 will place a boot loader on C:\
Win 10 will be at the top of the list so it will be the default OS, wait a few seconds and it will boot Win 10.

I have my favorite backed up in HTML on hdds and thumb drives, pictures, docs and the like too. So, I have no problem dragging/importing them into Win 10 or Linux.

My second hdd is a 240 GB ssd and very easy to unplug and the plug into my Win 7 or Linux drives. Yes, that makes 3 hard drives in that rig.

[Midknyte]

Normally, I go to the trouble of disconnecting my main hdd and install on a secondary drive. Worth the trouble in my book.

Yup. I would not do a dual boot of Win10 on my main rig. Better yet, use a different computer as your test system.

If you just want to look at Win10, I would suggest using a VM. If you want to test your hardware for compatibility, then you can do an actual install.

[jdc2000]

If both of your HDs are SATA, the easy way to go would be to disconnect the Windows 7 HD after downloading and creating the Windows 10 installation media. Install Windows10 to your unused hard drive with the Windows 7 drive disconnected.

With some motherboards, you may be able to select which drive to boot from with both drives connected.

[Train]

With some motherboards, you may be able to select which drive to boot from with both drives connected.

Boot to BIOS and select which drive to boot to.

[Welshjim]

Very helpful comments.
I plan to wait until Win 10 is available in "final" version. Yes, I will test, but I will try to make it my only OS eventually. But I would like to have Win 7 available for a while.

I like the idea of installing my backup first on the unused drive. After I have done that and then unplug the C:\ drive, will I be able to shut down the PC? Will the PC then automatically boot into the new drive with backup? When I replug the C:\ can I switch toggle between Win 7 and Win 10? I have never had two operating systems on my PC.

Train--Would a "upgrade install" of Win 10 be like a Repair Install with Win 7--not affecting personal data or installed programs? Would I do that like I do with Win 7?

[Midknyte]

After I have done that and then unplug the C:\ drive, will I be able to shut down the PC?

You would shutdown the system BEFORE you unplug the old C: drive.

Will the PC then automatically boot into the new drive with backup?

It should if you are restoring from an image backup like with Acronis True Image. It would be an exact snapshot of your current Windows.

When I replug the C:\ can I switch toggle between Win 7 and Win 10? I have never had two operating systems on my PC.

As Train and jdc2000 mentioned, you might be able choose which drive to boot off of from the BIOS.

Train--Would a "upgrade install" of Win 10 be like a Repair Install with Win 7--not affecting personal data or installed programs? Would I do that like I do with Win 7?

I know this one is for Train, but there is technically no "Repair" Install option for Win7. That is an in-place upgrade. The procedure is the same.

[Train]

You maybe interessted in " Reinstalling Windows 7 ' on this page.
https://www.winhelp.us/non-destructi...windows-7.html

There is a big catch in non-destructive reinstall of Windows 7. Many users have faced a failure notice during compatibility check saying: "Your current version of Windows is more recent than the version you are trying to upgrade to. Windows cannot complete the upgrade."

Then goes on to show how to beat it.
Wish I had known that several years ago. Saved lots of clients from heartburn.

[Welshjim]

What I meant when I asked about "Upgrade Install" and "Repair Install" is that the latter is what is covered here
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...r-install.html
I have done that several times--fortunately always successfully with Win 7. It seems similar to what is in the winhelp.us reference. I have often seen Repair Install referred to as Upgrade Install.
I am not trying to get hung up on Semantics.

[Midknyte]

A repair install is specifically installing the same version of Windows over itself. That's why it's called an in-place upgrade.

This will show you how to do a repair install (aka: in-place upgrade install) to fix your currently installed Windows 7 and preserve your user accounts, data, programs, and system drivers.

So it's basically doing an upgrade without actually upgrading the OS. (like from Vista to Win7)

If you are installing Win10 over Win7, that's just a normal upgrade install.

[benton]

A question while reading this post. I noted several replies with quotes. How does one select the a portion as a quote and include it in the response. I've tried using the snippet tool, but that doesn't seem to work.

[Midknyte]

Copy and paste the text and then hit the quote button in the toolbar (farthest right button that looks like a quote bubble) to add the quote tags around the text. Or you can click the quote button first, and then paste the text between the tags.

Or you can manually type the [quote][/quote] tags at the beginning and end of the text.
https://www.vbulletin.org/forum/misc.php?do=bbcode

[benton]

Thanks, Midknyte, I'll try that at a later date. Will print out and post on the corkboard.

[Welshjim]

midknyte--
So I understand that after I have installed the Win 7 backup on the unused drive and then do what you call an "upgrade install" using the Win 10 dowload I will wipe the personal data and installed programs from the Win 7 backup.

So is the purpose of loading the Win 7 backup first only to have an operating system on the hitherto fore used drive--since I will have unplugged the old drive with Win 7?