Reinstalling an OEM copy of Win 7

[pro2a]

I know an OEM copy of Win 7 can only be installed on one PC, but what if I wanted to upgrade my hard drive, and reinstall the OEM copy of the OS on it? They CD key is valid and I have the physical Win 7 disc. I was looking at getting one of those 10000 RPM 6.0Gb/s Velociraptor drives for Christmas (or sooner), and wanted to format my current primary drive and install my OS on to the Velociraptor. I'd keep my other two standard SATA drives for other storage.

Would the world implode if I tried to reinstall an OEM copy of Win 7 on to a new drive? When Windows says I can install it on to one PC... what do they mean by that? Is it one hard drive, one motherboard or one activation?

Thanks.

 

[KSoD]

No. Since you are just getting a new Hard drive and plan on using that as your OS drive that is fine. It is still the same machine with just the addidiont of a new hard drive right? If so that is fine. You can install and reinstall an OEM copy to the same machine unlimited number of times. It is just that machine that it can be installed on though.

 

[Muffin Man]

the raptor would be a waste of money for a fast OS drive, considering that your board doesn't even support sata 3.0. i would suggest you get an ssd
Newegg.com - OCZ Agility Series OCZSSD2-1AGT120G 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
something like that would be better. obviously not the same capacity as the raptor, but enough for your OS and programs.

 

[Trotter]

Or just get two of these and set them up in a RAID0:
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD6402AAEX 640GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

64MB cache each on the fastest 7200rpm drives will surpass a VelociRaptor and will give a TB of storage rather than the 120GB of that SSD.

Oh, and an OEM copy of any Windows OS is tied tot he motherboard it is first installed on.

 

[pro2a]

the raptor would be a waste of money for a fast OS drive, considering that your board doesn't even support sata 3.0. i would suggest you get an ssd
Newegg.com - OCZ Agility Series OCZSSD2-1AGT120G 2.5" 120GB SATA II MLC Internal Solid State Drive (SSD)
something like that would be better. obviously not the same capacity as the raptor, but enough for your OS and programs.

Lets just say hypothetically I did get a SATA 3.0 SSD drive... Does that just mean my MoBo won't recognize the SATA 3 and will only recognize the SATA 3 as a SATA 2? The point I am getting at, is say down the road in a few years I decide to upgrade my motherboard that supports SATA 3... I'd like to get a good drive now and carry it over instead of getting another one then.

I was told by a buddy who is also tech savvy that this could be done. Basically my MoBo will transfer at the 3Gb/s speed even though the drive can support up to 6Gb/s... Is there any truth to this?

I'm really not understanding all this hard drive (SSD, RPM, RAID, SATA2 and SATA3) stuff... so if someone can explain to me in the simplest terms possible I would appreciate it. I just want to get the fastest drive(s) possible for less then $200 with an understanding of what I am getting, how to set it up and what it does.

 

[MindoverMaster]

Wouldn't you have to reload 7 when adding the new board? It'd be a whole new ball park.

 

[Trotter]

SATA3 is backwards compatible with SATA2. Your motherboard is limited to SATA2 speeds, but can use the SATA3 drive.

SSD = Solid State Drive. These used flash memory and are very fast, but do have their limitations. they do not operate exactl as do conventional hard drives, so make sure to keep a good bit of open room for it to shuffle things around when it needs to do so.

RPM = revolutions per minute. Basically the speed at which the disk spins. The faster the disk, the shorter the seek time (generally).

RAID = Redundant Array of Independent (or Inexpensive) Disks. There are several versions of RAID. The one I mentioned, RAID0, uses two hard drives; it stripes the data between the drives, reading and writing to both at the same time, boosting the speed. The drawback is that if one of the drives fails... That's when you want to make sure to get a larger backup drive and use RAID 0+1, or just make regular backups. Just in case.

SATA = Serial ATA. The two and three are the generations. SATA1, or just plain SATA, has a top end of 1.5 Gbit/s, SATA2 can handle 3.0 Gbit/s, and SATA3 can handle 6.0 Gbit/s. Theoretically, of course.

Going with the two WB Black drives in RAID0, and this drive as your backup drive, you would be looking at $210.

 

[pro2a]

Or just get two of these and set them up in a RAID0:
Newegg.com - Western Digital Caviar Black WD6402AAEX 640GB 7200 RPM 64MB Cache SATA 6.0Gb/s 3.5" Internal Hard Drive -Bare Drive

64MB cache each on the fastest 7200rpm drives will surpass a VelociRaptor and will give a TB of storage rather than the 120GB of that SSD.

Oh, and an OEM copy of any Windows OS is tied tot he motherboard it is first installed on.

Am I correct in assuming if I RAID these two together it would be like running one drive at 14400rpm w/ double the cache?

Also how would I RAID these?

 

[MindoverMaster]

No, RAID 0 is called stripping, it will act like a single drive, rpm the same.

Either your board has a RAID controller in it, or use a RAID controller card. (PCI normally)