Reinstall of Win7 - help please :]

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23 Apr 2011
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Hey people,

Wondering if you can help a rather amateur PC owner to reinstall Win7 ...

I want to do a fresh reinstall Win7.. Firstly, I am certain I have gfx card problems and need to replace, but before I spend the cash I want to reinstall Win7 to ensure there are no issues from that and at least I can then be sure it's just the Gfx card, and nothing to do with the OS.

Current machine is as follows:
-Intel Core i7 920 2.66GHz @ 3.40GHz Quad Core DDR3 System
-TI Radeon HD 5850 1024MB GDDR5 PCI-Express Graphics Card
-Intel X25-V Value 40GB 2.5" SATA-II Solid State Hard Drive (this is the HD that Windows came pre-installed on)
- Seagate Barracuda 7200.12 1TB SATA-II 32MB Cache

Win7(64bit pro) came pre-installed (by Overclockers) and I have the disc which came with my bundle.

However, the problem I am having is when I try and run a reinstall by loading the disc and choosing the Set-Up option, I then get these options:
1. Upgrade
2. Custom
I choose 'custom' since I want to start over, but every time I start running through this part of this process I reach a dead end. Since I want to reinstall it on the solid state drive (which Win7 is currently installed on), but it tells me that there isn't enough space (it's only got a 37gb capacity, and it's on about 34gb now). I've gone in and tried to delete everything which I don't need, and all I am left with is Window's related files and/or what look like system files, so I am afraid to delete anything else I do something stupid.. :S
So I am now stuck, it doesn't seem to have an option where I can choose to 'delete existing Win7 and replace it with a new copy please!'...
Someone mentioned I should be 'booting from the disc' to do a reinstall... But assuming that, that means I should insert the Win7 disc and turn on the machine and somehow, rather than running the normal loading sequence, I get some sort of 'boot from disc' screen. I don't know. But this doesn't happen if I put the disc in CD/DVD drive and reboot.. There is no difference in the loading sequence with the disc in or out, I just get the normal loading screens until I get to the normal Windows log-in screen.
I'm sure there is something really obvious I can do to get this reinstall done, which I haven't thought of? Or perhaps there are existing Win files I can delete to create enough space (about 8.8gb according to the scan)

It's getting a bit desperate, as am getting a lot of crashes and am sure a reinstall will help even if I still need to fork out for this new GFX card after..

Any help appreciated, do feel free to talk to me like a complete amateur, as I prob won't understand otherwise :p

Cheers all!

Lisa
 
You will either need to change the boot order from the bios or simply access the boot menu.

Not sure on your motherboard, but this can be by pressing delete or F8 as your computer is booting up.
 
Hi,

Thanks for reply :)

When you say 'change boot order from bios' - you mean to put the CD/DVD drive first in some pre-windows menu? And then do I reboot the PC again and I should see something else happen?

Sorry to be so basic, but am a bit of a newb - usually have a friend who does all this for me but he's moved away damn him ;]
 
Yeah, If you put the DVD in the drive and then you have to tell the computer to boot from the disc.

When you switch on the computer it should come up with a screen and in the corner say 'Press Del for boot options' or something similar, You need to press that and get into the bios. Somewhere in there will be the option to tell it to boot from the CD.
 
Okay.. I got into the BIOS settings and I put the CD drive into first position and saved, it then continued to load, went to a black/white screen with loads of blurb on it. Then at the bottom it said:
'Press any key to Boot from CD...' I tried pressing buttons but nothing happened and it finally timed out and went to normal Window's Log in Screen.. :[
Did this twice in a row... Same result.
Any idea why / what I might have done wrong..?
 
Okay.. I got into the BIOS settings and I put the CD drive into first position and saved, it then continued to load, went to a black/white screen with loads of blurb on it. Then at the bottom it said:
'Press any key to Boot from CD...' I tried pressing buttons but nothing happened and it finally timed out and went to normal Window's Log in Screen.. :[
Did this twice in a row... Same result.
Any idea why / what I might have done wrong..?

You need to press a key on the keyboard, which 'buttons' were you trying?

Andi.
 
I pressed enter to start with, then nothing happened so I sort of randomly pressed a few different ones... Is there one in particular?
 
When it says press a key to boot from DVD any key will do, I just click a random letter.

If you can try put windows on a USB, installs much quicker!
 
i may be wrong, but i will give it a try.
as you said, windows 7 was already installed on your pc, there is a good chance there is a recovery partition on the hard drive.

have a look here http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows7/Choosing-an-advanced-recovery-method
or to do it yourself
turn on pc, immediatley keep tapping f8 until you get a menu with white writing.
choose repair your computer. then select uk keyboard and select your user name. then choose system image recovery from the list
then follow this guide http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/668-system-recovery-options.html

a clean install if you have a disk and no recovery partition http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

oh and dont forget to backup all your pics, docs, videos first onto a different hard drive
 
Just to say a big thanks all :)

Managed to run the fresh install in the end by using a non USB keyboard to 'choose any key' to boot from disc. For some reason my normal keyboard stopped working at this point each time..

That's the good news... The bad news is, after the reinstall, I downloaded the latest ATI drivers for my GFX card and within 5 minutes of this I had repeated (white/pink/black) screen crashes again. So am now almost certain its the GFX card at least, but gutted I've got to buy a new one after only just over a year! Think I'll go back to NVidia, ATI have sucked this time.
 
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