New hard drive install?

This is really a hardware and software question. I'm going to be installing a new hard drive and a new OS (Win 7) on a HP Pavilion m9550f. I've never installed a new hard drive. Are the steps listed in this link accurate/best way to go?

http://www.windows7ultimate.windowsreinstall.com/windows7installguides/indexfullpage.htm

Thanks!

 

it seems fairly accurate but one thing i will let you know is that if you don't have or don't want to waste any dvd's you don't need to.

Simply download the windows operating system you need from the Microsoft website use something like rufus or pendrivelinux to create a bootable usb stick for your operating system ( i recommend rufus unless you want to create linux operating systems too).

Go to bios and make sure to boot from usb or cd, i believe f9 lets you pick a boot device.

If i am not mistaken i think i read a thread where a computer hard drive failed if i were you i would probably create a multiboot using penlinuxdrive and put a linux operating system along with the operating system you want to install in there. The reason for this is if your windows operating system fails you can boot linux from a usb or sd card and still access some of your windows files through it.


I would also recommend you also partition your hard drive if its large, there really isn't a reason not to do so. For example if you have a 500 gb+ hard drive partition the operating system into a smaller partition ( 80 gb~) and then create other partitions for other important files you want to store.

Keeping your important files somewhere else besides the same partition than your operating system also makes it easier to retrieve important things you want to pull out should the operating ever become damage, infected or corrupt that is.

 

Thank you, Nexus. That was much easier than I had anticipated.