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Help for Windows 8 upgrade / install


Ian223

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Thank you both. The HDD has been used as my back-up drive for a while so has a lot of existing content. It is not partitioned (or rather, is all a single partition - when I view it shows as Disk0 Partion 1), can I install Windows 8 on the HDD without losing the existing data?

 

Is there anything special required to do so or can I install directly into the partion and somehow avoid Windows formatting it?

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Thank you both. The HDD has been used as my back-up drive for a while so has a lot of existing content. It is not partitioned (or rather, is all a single partition - when I view it shows as Disk0 Partion 1), can I install Windows 8 on the HDD without losing the existing data?

 

Is there anything special required to do so or can I install directly into the partion and somehow avoid Windows formatting it?

if i remember right, whatever is existing on the drive will be saved and converted to a "windows old" file,...it will either show up on the desktop or the C: drive afterward...that is of course, unless you choose to reformat...but don't go by me, google is your friend

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Usually there is an option during the install to shrink the current partition and create a new one on the unallocated space left on the disk. If you do this, your old data will show up as drive D:/ in Windows.

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Thank you both. The HDD has been used as my back-up drive for a while so has a lot of existing content. It is not partitioned (or rather, is all a single partition - when I view it shows as Disk0 Partion 1), can I install Windows 8 on the HDD without losing the existing data?

 

Is there anything special required to do so or can I install directly into the partion and somehow avoid Windows formatting it?

if i remember right, whatever is existing on the drive will be saved and converted to a "windows old" file,...it will either show up on the desktop or the C: drive afterward...that is of course, unless you choose to reformat...but don't go by me, google is your friend

 

 

I'm guession my Google skills are weak, but the specific question I think I need to answer is: does an install of Windows 8 (or 7) to a HDD which has data but has never had an OS installed on it (so a new install not an upgrade) maintain the existing data on that drive?

 

Or, because that drive may never have been formatted, or because Windows has to create a partition for system files, will the existing data be lost (because the existing partition needs to be split or similar)?

 

What I could find on Google all appeared to assume I was upgrading or clean installing Win 8 onto a HDD which had previously had a Windows OS.

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Usually there is an option during the install to shrink the current partition and create a new one on the unallocated space left on the disk. If you do this, your old data will show up as drive D:/ in Windows.

 

Thanks Euro, I can see if this option is available during the Setup process on the DVD. I think I remember from previous Windows upgrades that this option exists if you're going through an 'upgrade' on an existing OS but haven't tried it on a new install.

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what you can do is partition the hd before you install any os, it must be formatted or you would not see any files on it, so partition it leaving all your files on one partition and nothing on the other, then load the os on the partition that is empty, that should save all the data on the second partition. :)

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