[oneartist]

I did a clean install of Windows 7 OEM System Builders Pack on my old custom build computer Pentium 4 3.2GHz. 3GB RAM. WD 10K RPM 69GB and 37GB hard drives. Why did the clean install use up 61GB of the C drive? There are no programs installed. I know that hard drives are cheap and I don't mind addding a new one, but I had many large programs installed on this same HD in an XP version. There is no room to reinstall them. The upgrade adviser said that I needed 16GB to install Win 7. Why did it take 61 GB?

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Hi Oneartist

Did you format the C: drive during install?

Maybe you didn't remove the old windows installation, if it's the case then if you ran the Windows Disk Cleanup it should offer you the option to delete Previous Windows installations and Service Pack Backup Files

[SleepyDude]

Hi Oneartist

Did you format the C: drive during install?

Maybe you didn't remove the old windows installation, if it's the case then if you ran the Windows Disk Cleanup it should offer you the option to delete Previous Windows installations and Service Pack Backup Files

[oneartist]

Thank you Sleepy. The old files do not show up on "Disk Cleanup" so I formatted the smaller 37GB disk and I'm installing Windows 7 on that drive. Then, I should be able to format the larger 69GB disk. I'll let you know how it works.

[SleepyDude]

Thank you Sleepy. The old files do not show up on "Disk Cleanup" so I formatted the smaller 37GB disk and I'm installing Windows 7 on that drive. Then, I should be able to format the larger 69GB disk. I'll let you know how it works.

Ok, Hope your Windows 7 install disk includes Service Pack 1 or you will have a very long ride to install all the windows updates, with SP1 will be less.

After all the updates if everything is working properly you can use the disk cleanup to remove the Windows Update Cleanup, this will remove the backups created during the install of updates and usually take some GB of space. If the Disk Cleanup doesn't show that option make sure you install the KB2852386 update.

37GB will be enough for Windows but if you intend to install some big programs you will probably need to install them on the second HDD, from my experience Windows 7 will need two times more space than Windows XP.

[oneartist]

The install on the 37GB drive took less than 10GB of space. I renamed the smaller drive C. But, since the larger drive also has an operating system on it, it is not allowing me to format it.

[SleepyDude]

The install on the 37GB drive took less than 10GB of space. I renamed the smaller drive C. But, since the larger drive also has an operating system on it, it is not allowing me to format it.

If the second drive doesn't have nothing related to the current system you should be able to use the Disk Manager to delete the partition, create a new one and format.

[oneartist]

Sleepy, thanks for your help. I feel like I've just taken a computer course. After getting Windows 7 installed on the 37GB drive, I plugged in the 74GB hard drive. I tried to format the larger HD but I got an error message that it had the boot drive and it could not be formatted. Then I tried the disk manager suggestion and then using the cmd prompt to clean the drive. No luck, same error. Finally, I followed instructions to boot from the DVD installation disk. After the first screen of the new installation appeared, I held Shift and clicked the F10 button. This took me to a RAM cmd prompt. I followed the DISKPAR instructions, selected disk 0 and had it cleaned. Later, I had to use Disk Manager to create a simple drive on the cleaned HD before it would show up under my computer. I'll add the link that helped me. When I tried to restart, it would not boot. I restarted again and hit delete to get into the boot menu. The boot order only listed the larger HD that had been cleaned. I discovered that the order of the cable connection had to be changed to make the smaller HD with the operating system as the first HD, The first HD is the only one that can be selected for boot. Then all was well. Now, I'm installing the Windows 7 on the larger HD and then I will clean the smaller HD- now that I know how. Here is the link that got through (drop down to Karlsnooks and keep reading his suggestions):
http://www.sevenforu...k-clean-hd.html

Edited by oneartist, 25 December 2013 - 11:05 PM.

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

Thank You for let us know the result, good job.

Sounds like you have IDE Hard Drives, one of the drives is Master and the other one on the same cable is Slave. The order is set by changing a small jumper on the drives or if the jumper is set to cable select position changing the connection order on the cable will change the Master/Slave order (sometimes this doesn't work and we need to use the jumper to force the configuration we want).


Now that you changed the order the Disk Manager will let you clean the other drive, by default windows puts the boot files on the first drive that's why you got "its boot drive and it could not be formatted" when the system was installed on the second drive.

[oneartist]

[quote name='SleepyDude' timestamp='1388071514' post='2361216']
jumper on the drives or if the jumper is set to cable select position changing the connection order on the cable will change the Master/Slave order


Thanks for the reminder. I built this old desktop about 8 or 9 years ago. I had forgotten about the jumpers. The WD 10K rpm raptors use a small red cable instead of the older multipin style. If I have any trouble, I'll check the jumper settings. This whole process has been very educational.

[oneartist]

Everything works. Win 7 is on the larger Raptor 74GB drive(61GB free space) and the smaller 36GB Raptor is cleaned. Since this is 32Bit older Win 7 I can only add 1GB of RAM for total of 4GB. This computer has a nice CoolerMaster WaveMaster aluminum case with removable mobo tray. The Raptor 10K harddrives use Sata cables. I'm toying with the idea of using this case to build a new computer and keeping my Raptor drives and CD and DVD burner/players.

Is this a bad idea? Maybe I should just start with a new case.

Edited by oneartist, 30 December 2013 - 10:14 AM.

[SleepyDude]

Hi,

Thanks for let us know the result.

If you like the case and it can accommodate everything you want I don't see any problem you only need to check if the power supply is powerful enough for everything you want to connect specially if you are into gaming...

In newer machines many people are using SSD drives for the OS and programs to get faster boot and the programs running faster, on this type of configuration the HDD's are used to store mainly data but yours are not too large...

All this is relative and depends on the use that the machine will have.

[oneartist]

The power supply is a good Zalman ZM400A-apf but it's for Pentium 4. I have a newer laptop(with solid state hd). This 10 plus year old custom built 3.2GB computer is working so good with the new Win 7 that I ordered one more GB of RAM. I've decided to use a limited number of programs (Samplitude Pro X, RME Multiface, Adobe Light Room and Magix Video Pro X) on this computer and ues it for at least another year. Thanks for all your help and support.

[SleepyDude]

Sounds like a plan

Thanks for all your help and support.

I'm glad we could help.

Regards.