Allen wrote:
> Gene E. Bloch wrote:
>> On Sun, 18 Oct 2009 20:13:47 -0500, Allen wrote:
>>
>>> I bought a Dell Inspiron in June 2008, with Vista SP1 factory
>>> installed;pgraded now to SP2. After many fruitless attempts at running
>>> W7 Upgrade Advisor, it tells me that the Hard Drive Controller is
>>> incompatible, and furthermore that I need 15GB free disc space, but I
>>> have only 14GB. I have the following hard discs:
>>>
>>> Internal:
>>> Samsung 500GB HD501LJ SATA, 277GB available (Boot disc)
>>> Western Digital WDC10 00L5B1 SATA, approx 250GB available
>>>
>>> External, USB2, PATA:
>>> Maxtor 500GB,141GB available
>>> Western Digital, 250GB, approx 100 GB available
> Thank you, Gene, and to an unknown person who responded from some MS
> site that I didn't know existed. I found it when I googled my post. It
> is puzzling to me that Win7 Upgrade Advisor opened by saying, in effect,
> OK to go with 7; then followed the two hard disc messages. How in hell
> could a person run Win 7 without a hard disk? One or the other--OK or no
> hard disk compatibility--has to be wrong. I haven't been able to find,
> after extensive searching, any updates except two on the Dell site,
> which I installed. I will buy a 1TB external and make a thorough backup
> before I try to install 7. I don't feel safe using any drive now in or
> attached to the machine. I've been using Dell exclusively since about
> 1990, and I have known people who have used them back when he was making
> them in his dorm room. In that 18 or 19 years of owning Dells, I had
> made only one tech support call, so when the one-year free service
> expired I thought I don't need this and didn't renew. Now I'm relying on
> the kindness of strangers, to steal from A Streetcar Named Desire. At
> least I used better sense with home and collision insurance. Again,
> thanks for your response.
That's just silly. There is no reason not "feel safe" about any part of this
issue. The only thing that has happened is that the Windows Advisor is
wonky. This isn't uncommon. Even when it assesses your hardware accurately,
the Windows Advisor - whether it was for Vista or Win7 - is just an
*advisor* and not to be taken as the Gospel Of Upgrading. Frankly, since you
say that you had "many fruitless attempts" at running the Advisor I'd take
that as a sign that Win7 won't work on your computer and leave it alone. But
if you still insist on pursuing this, here are a few ideas:
You have an external hard drive so you must be backing up already. Backing
up is a crucial disaster recovery strategy no matter what operating system
you are running.
Buy Acronis True Image and image your system and store it on your external
hard drive. This is A Good Thing whether you are going to upgrade or not.
Then do a live chat with Dell or post on their forums or look on their tech
support page for your specific model Inspiron to see if there are drivers for
Win7. If there are drivers for Win7, then it will run on your machine. If
there aren't, then you take a chance it won't work with your hardware. But
since you will have made an image and can therefore get back to your working
system in under an hour, this is no big deal and no cause for any drama.
If you don't have any other computers to upgrade to Win7 and understandably
don't want to spend the money unless you're sure, perhaps you have a friend
who is buying a retail copy. Install with his - without activating! - and if
all is well, go buy your own copy. If all is not well, either Win7 won't
install at all or if it does, apply your image and be back to where you
started after a few hours total.
Malke
--
MS-MVP
Elephant Boy Computers - Don't Panic!
http://www.elephantboycomputers.com/#FAQ
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