Over my head technology
I am a beginner (but I've owned one since 1985) with on-the-fly (trial and error) knowledge. (Which means I only know enough to make a mess.) My system - Dell XPS Studio 1640 - 64 bit, Vista Ultimate was purchased about 1 year ago. My initial intention was to buy the type of system I thought my son, an entering freshmen, could use through college. I got him one and, fortunately, it is out of my reach and I can't mess with it like I have with mine. Long into, sorry. My adventures mixed with fearless ignorance, have landed me in a sinkhole and I need your help to save me from myself.
I purchased and downloaded True Image with the hope it might help. Basically, what I need is step by step directions. I've read many of the posts. Some questions were answered but were replaced with questions I don't know how to ask. The current state of my computer is - Vista Ultimate - 64 - SP1. I have installed it several times, but never the correct way. I merely re-installed the OS (and some programs) on top of one another.. My hard drive has copies of my files and backups as well as programs I didn't reinstall. At various times, with various external drives, I have made or tried to make backups at decent intervals with various backup software. (Windows, DriveClone Pro 6.0, Data Rescue PC 3, Memeo, WD Anywhere and, probably a few others.)
My pertinent hardware consists of 1 FreeAgent External Drive (2TB), 1 Seagate Expansion External Drive (2 TB), Western Digital Mirror (2 TB) which came with Memeo and WD Anywhere Backup, both of which came with my WD Mirror. (I could never figure out if I needed both Memeo and WD Anywhere, one or the other, or none so I installed them all.). On 1 of my Seagate's I think I have all the backups from all the programs I used - at least that's what I wanted to do.
And, if that wasn't enough, some of my backups were made with SP2, other's SP1 and Vista - out of the box backups. I want to fix my mess but I'm not sure how. I want to run Windows 7 and never mess with my computer again. I would like my final "product" to have Windows 7 (which has not been installed on any drive). I have all the software (I think) to reinstall the software but don't know the file names of the old data locations. I'm thinking I need to make one of my external drives be the keeper of all user data) and keep my program files on the internal hard drive. Of course, I'm probably wrong.
My questions, in no logical format consist of:
What in the world do I do first? If I start with my current desktop configuration Vista-SP1 do I export it to a drive, then format the C drive, do a clean install with Windows 7 and then try a restore?
Or, should I forget doing everything and just upgrade to W 7. Of course, there is that messy thing with some software running SP1 or SP2 (many with updated drivers for the programs - as well as at least 1 backup with all security patches installed)?
Or, should I update the existing software to Windows 7 first, and then backup, format and re- install Windows 7 as a clean install and restore through Acronis?
Should I update all the software and hardware and install Windows 7 on an external drive and use Acronis to clone it to my C drive?
I know this is confusing and I'm probably not explaining right anyway.
I want to end up with Windows 7 installed with the correct files, updated and the compatible programs running correctly.
Can I restore specific files made with other backup software to my "new" system. Of course, that assumes the software was capable of backing up individual files.
You know, I'm so confused I don't even know how to ask for help. Is this a pipe dream or is there hope for me and my Studio XPS 1640?
Thanks, I appreciate your response to my missive. I'll read it again.
I am also new to this external harddrive thing and I purchased Acronis ( Highly recomende by many) and I keep getting all this "MEMEO" stuff(Popups) and I removed all memeo from my P.C.Is this something that came on my seagate xternal H.D or did it come with acronis( Which I doubt it did) and was it O.K to delete it?
Marsha,
A few things to consider.
- When you upgrade your OS, you cannot use a backup to put your programs back in place. YOu can use a backup only to restore content,
- You can do an upgrade of your system using your Win 7 installation DVD. With Windows 7, the in-place upgrade works very well, although it can be long. This process will also tell you what programs you have that could create incompatibility with window 7. Before starting the upgrade, do a full disk backup of your system using Acronis, validate it and test it with your recovery CD for safety purposes (hence read Grover's guide to do so). Then do the OS in-place upgrade. Most likely, everything will be just fine, although you might have to update some software later.
- If you have the installation CD/files of *all* the programs you want to run under win 7, you can decide to do a clean install of Win 7. This will erase everything, so be sure to make the backup before going down this path.