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November 4th, 2009 21:00
Installing Windows 7 on a second hard drive
I have a Dell Deminsion 8300, which is running the 75GB hard drive it came with. I have ugraded the memory to 4gb (2x2gb) ram, and the video card to an ATI all-in-wonder 9600 series. I want to install another hard drive (160GB), and install Windows 7 on it. I was wondering if the deminsion 8300 could support Windows 7 64-bit OS or if I should try the 32-bit. I plan on keeping the Windows XP on the original hard drive. I would greatly appreciate any help, and if you need any further information I would be glad to provide it.
Thanks
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RobinBredin
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November 5th, 2009 01:00
Hi, Your system specks are HERE. With an old system like that, your better off keeping the 32bit OS, I don't think your current CPU can handle an 64bit OS. To setup an new hard drive do this, When you see the Dell splash screen, Press F2, go into your BIOS, Highlight the drive and press enter to enable it. Then save and exit into windows. Then go into Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer Management, Storage, Disk Management. Then right click your new drive, select format. From there you can assign the drive an letter.
Seribural
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November 5th, 2009 07:00
Is it alright to install Windows 7 32 bit, or should I just install Windows XP on the second harddrive as well. Also, I couldn't find on the specs about what connectors my motherboard uses, SATA or IDE for hard drives. If someone knows, that would save me some time from having to open up the pc and finding out.
Thanks
Mary G
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November 5th, 2009 07:00
No need to install any operating system on the second drive if you are just going to use it as an additional drive for storage. It would be silly to install the same operating system on both drives. I think installing windows 7 would be a waste of money ($120 for the upgrade) on such an old computer. Even installing an unnecessary second hard drive would be a waste unless you really need more hard disk space.
RobinBredin
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3.7K Posts
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November 5th, 2009 11:00
Hi Seribural, Have a look inside your system,
Removing a Hard Drive
Press in on the tabs on each side of the drive and slide the drive up and out.
You can put Win 7 on the other drive and duel boot, but, it will have to be the 32bit version, as your CPU will not run an 64bit version. The rest of your manual is HERE.
kakkar
5 Posts
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March 5th, 2010 10:00
Hi,
For the last few weeks I have tried installing Win 7 on my dell dimension 8300 and i dare say the expereince has been leser said the better..
The specs I have are 320 GB HD WD Blue cavier, 3GB RAM and the machine works fine for few days but then the system just crashes..net result I have repplaced HD twice, infact WD sent the refurbished HD and it crashed in 2 days and have replaced the win 7 OS copy once...
Can spome one guide me and do and dont of this install and if I can use the SATA drive and if so what specs would work... as for for IDE the recomended one was 80GB, 7200 RPM, 8MHz... but on XP i was using the 320 GB WD Blue Cavier Hard Drive and it works just fine for the last year...and I ran the win 7 compatibility test and my system passed the win 7 compatablity test..
This last time the OS worked fine for couple of days and then it just frooze and i tried using the auto repair funtion, infact called MSFT and we run all ambiut oif things, even changed the OS DVD but still the problem remains and iut says run chk dsk and some boot sector files are not repaiarable....so my qurstion is that is there an issue with the type of HD or something which just got missed by all..
Could you advise me way forward..