moving to win7, some issues...

[the_artz19]

i started with windows vista 64 all to recently, and am currently testing windows 7 on a small partition on my main drive.

i am looking to completely reformat, as i have a disk with windows7 on it, and all of my needed files are on a separate partition. the one down side being that when i installed windows 7 on to this partition the first time it was easy, because they gave me the option to select that partition. however i dont recall there being an option that i recognized as selecting a drive and giving it a clean partitioning/install.
aside from keeping track of what programs i will want to reinstall there is no other issue besides finding the exact way to do this reformatting.
so i am just looking for anything that hopefully has more than just a general idea, since past suggestions didnt seem to apear as most recounted them.

thank you.

[the_artz19]

i do not think you have...
as i said i didn't go into any other options at the time as i only wanted to install to the partition that i had set aside. whatever options i went through, or at least saw, i didn't recall one that i thought sounded as you have described.

the only other thing i could ask would be about the instillation itself, and restarts. when i installed the first time, i finally got it to boot from disc, and then upon first restart. it looked like it was going to start the instillation over again. needless to say, on the third restart i just canceled and went to see if it was working and it was.
i wonder if that might be something with my disc, my computer being set to start off of the disc or not(i just waited for press any key to boot from disc screen). i am not sure how many restarts i may expect, or if there are any signs i somehow missed that would assure me that it was continuing an install rather than beginning another(because i didn't notice a difference at any point).

thank you, and
well, when i find the time to... i will take that information and try to make that clean start.

[the_artz19]

i don't think i went through more than one or two reboots... its just that i was asking, to the best of your knowledge, would there be any difference if i were to simply press a key when it says do you want to boot from disk? rather than setting your computer to boot from disk. i never got a "hey its finished, remove the disc and restart" type of message. just it telling me that it needed a restart, going through a normal reboot, and then saying press any key to boot from disc.
so should i turn on the function that says the first thing to boot from is the disc? because i never noticed anything that looked like it was picking up were it left off. unless i didn't pay enough attention, it always looked like it was starting the install over again for all i knew.

anyway, im sure i will try to make it boot from the disc automatically rather than manually when i do it next time. hopefully it will be more seamless and precise when i don't have to "press any key"

[sach2]

You just have to boot from disc the first time (press any key). Once it copies the files and reboots don't touch any keys but leave the disc in the CD drive. It will be booting from the HD but using the installation disc for more files.

On the second/third? reboot after 30 minutes or so of installation when you get a desktop, you no longer need to keep the CD in the tray.

[augiedoggie]

One thing with multiple partitions is knowing which is which, basically it should be drive 0/partition 0. I had 5 OS's at one time with identical partition sizes and subsequently got lost so I named them all first and never got lost again, that is booting into each OS and renaming the C drive. They like to think they are on C:\ but are not physically.

[the_artz19]

thank you for all the responses. i am not sure which of the two i will eventually choose(press any key, or set to boot from disk first). but i am none the less more informed, and since it worked once and my goal is a clean sweep...there shouldn't really be any issues i don't think.

i guess that since the reboots and segments of instillation seemed to all look identical, and there was no automatic boot from disk... i was just uneasy. since i just expected to put the disk in, restart, and be directly thereafter prompted about the instillation... and of course later to be told how it was continuing on after the restart.
but i guess, as with most windows functions, and progress bars... are we really to expect anything to be clear.

thanks again. i will post again provided i am successful and don't forget.