HD / OS Upgrade Procedure Questions

I'm thinking of upgrading my HardDrive and OS on my Gateway p-6860.
I currently have the stock 320gb 5400rpm drive with Vista Home Premium x64.

My plan is to:
1) Purchase a 320gb WD 7200rpm hard drive (too bad they don't make 500gb)
2) Install it in my 2nd Hard Drive bay
3) Do a new install of Windows 7 (don't know whether to go Proffessional or Home Premium)
a.Not quite sure how to do this... I will be downloading Win 7 so I assume i will have to dl it onto my Vista Drive. Format the new HD and then somehow install it.
4) After I have Windows 7 installed on my second hardrive, can i access my Vista drive and copy over all my files?

I will then run off on Windows 7 for atleast a couple of months to make sure the drive and install are good.
I would then like to convert my Vista drive into a backup drive. I would take it out of the laptop and put it in an external case. Do i have to reformat it to make it into an external drive? Or is it possible to just delete Vista but not all the files?

Sorry, this is getting long - to sum up my questions.
1) After I dl Win 7 onto my Vista Drive and install the 500gb drive into the second HD bay, can I install Win 7 from Vista?
2) Which should I go with Win 7 Proffessional or Home Premium (i can get them for the same price)
3) After Win 7 is installed, how easy (what is the process) to copy over files from the Vista HD to the Win 7 HD.
4) After i've run stable for a couple of months is it possible to turn the Vista drive into an external HardDrive by deleting Vista but keeping all the files?

Thanks for all of your help

 

Hendel,

This is my recommended install:

Buy 500 GB Scorpio Blue notebook drive (feels 'faster' overall than 7200.4 Seagate and more power efficient too).

Download Win 7 Pro (the price difference is minimal, I would think and with Pro, you'll get access to XP Mode as long as your notebook has a CPU and BIOS with VT capabilities (or you could do the same thing with VMware for additional cost (but also much better performance than XP Mode).

Burn it at the slowest speed possible with your DVD burner. Have 'verify' data enabled to also ensure that it is the best burn possible.

Remove your old notebook drive (make sure you remove power and battery too before you do).

Install the new drive.

Install Windows 7 - do not activate it yet (you have at least 30 days and up to 120 days to activate it on any one computer - google for 'rearm Win 7 120 days').

Install any needed drivers, do windows updates and finally install any programs you need to use.

Now, you can install your Windows Vista drive as the secondary drive in your computer and copy any data you need to the Windows 7 drive.

Does this help?

 

So,
Download Win7, burn it to DVD.
Take Vista out of primary hd bay.
Install 500gb into primary hd bay.
Insert Win7 disk and install.
Install Vista Hard Drive into second bay.
Copy over files.


Question: When I take the Vista HD out of the primary bay and replace it with the 500gb, can i put it straight into the second bay prior to installing win 7?
Or do i have to take it out completely, install win 7, and then put it in the second hard drive bay?
Also, when copying files from Vista to Win7 Hard Drive, is it as easy as drag n' drop?

Also, does the 500gb drive fit in my p-6860?
I think i probably will go with the 500gb as opposed to 320 because looking at the benchmarks there is minimal improvement... and i'd probably rather have the extra 180gb rather than 3 seconds loading time.

 

You should be okay to 'put it straight into the second bay' prior to installing Win 7, but I wouldn't.

First rule of thumb when installing an O/S; disconnect everything from the computer that you don't need.

Yes, the 500GB drive will fit as long as your notebook is 'standard' and accepts 9.5mm height drives (which it should). You'll find out just by comparing to what is currently installed.

I normally will always take speed over capacity (in a desktop), but since this is almost 2010 and kb files are not the norm anymore, I have to be 'abnormal' and choose capacity with decent performance for my notebooks; Scorpio Blue 500GB WD.

I really wouldn't put the 'Vista' drive in while you're installing Win 7 - you may get 'bitten' by weird, ancient BIOS/port protocols that may trash the Vista drives ability to boot. Weirder things have happened...