Pointers On My Win 7 PC Please

[Lurch]

I like my Win10 PC much better now that I put a SanDisk 240 GB SSD in it.
Now I want to run it full time and keep my Win7 PC as a spare.

I have not yet been able to format the HD and keep Win7.
I'd like to do this and then clone the HD and copy it to a non SSD HD, and keep the wiped SSD for when I buy another Win 10 PC to install in that.

What's the best way to do a clean install of Windows 7? Delete or save all my folders and programs and the SSD will clean itself?

Yesterday after I formatted 2 HDs, they no longer showed up on my drives list for some reason. In the BIOS, I made sure both HDs were turned on.
Should I enable "combination"?

Thanks for any tips. I can always take it to a reasonably priced PC shop and I'm sure he can do it in about a half hour.

Lurch

[Philip]

Not sure what exactly you mean by "formatting the HD and keeping Win7", formatting deletes all files on that particular partition of the HDD.
To do a completely clean install of Windows 7, you need to have Installation media (DVD or USB), and the Windows key. You also need to backup all your files. Then the steps are:
1) Boot the PC from the installation media (preferably with only one HDD connected, the one you want the OS installed to)
2) Run through the installation.

I wouldn't do a "combination" of HDDs, I would keep them formatted as separate "simple" disks.

If your HDDs don't show up in Windows Explorer after partitioning/formatting, check "Disk Management" under: Control Panel > System and Security > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.
You should be able to see all your formatted and unformatted drives in there, and you can repartition/format them.

[Lurch]

Thank you so much. I will work on getting this done.

I just wanted to do a clean install and improve it's performance nd possibly even sell it if I can clone the SSD and get Win7 onto a regular HD.
It's not as fast as my Windows 10 PC which also has a SSD.

[Lurch]

This sounds do-able for sure. Thanks again.

[Lurch]

The MS Product Key # on top of the Win7 PC I'm wanting to format is for Windows XP.
It was evidently a Win XP PC originally.

Will this work, do you know?

[Philip]

You can try this freeware tool to recover the Windows 7 key from the registry (as it is in binary in there and not easy to decipher):

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/product_cd_key_viewer.html

[Lurch]

Awesome Philip. Thank you. I'll try this.

[Philip]

Yeah, just keep in mind they had different keys for Retail, OEM, and upgrade versions of Windows. In case you have an "upgrade" key, it only works for upgrading from another OS, not for new install.. I think you can "upgrade" from Windows 7 to Windows 7 though, lol, so you don't need to install XP.

[Lurch]

OK, thank you.

[Lurch]

I got the MS ISO download tool and installed it, the entered the product key I got with ProduKey program, and it wouldn't verify. I got a message code from MS to contact them but I didn't. I have a feeling it's a pirated version of Win 7 and they want me to pay for a new product key, which I don't plan to do. This Win7 runs well as is. I'll probably just keep running it as is with the installed SanDisk SSD. It runs good but I still think I prefer my Win10 PC, also with SanDisk SSD 240 GB installed. Both are Dell PCs, a GX620 and the Win10 is a Dell 960.

Thanks for the help.

[Philip]

No problem It could be an issue because it was upgraded from XP or something else, I've called before and they straightened it out, but up to you if you don't know whether the license is genuine.