Windows 7 upgrade questions: Migrating files from a cloned internal drive?

[semisonic9]

(Yep. Should have done more research before I tried this method).

I just installed a clean (non-upgrade) version of Windows 7 on my home machine. I had two drives that were 80-90% full, so I borrowed a drive from work and cloned my primary drive C)to that drive K). I was thinking I'd have a empty drive with a fresh install of Windows 7, and then the old drive to transfer files and programs off of.

Seemed like a slick idea. I figured the fresh install would completely wipe my old primary drive. It did not. The clean install even kept my old windows file, mounted under /old. Seems like all I did was further junk up my hard drive and make the process of migrating to 7 more confusing.

• Windows has "Windows Easy Transfer", requires an external drive. This seems clunky as shit. Why do they care if I'm transferring from an external or internal drive? Is there any work-around to pull the data off the cloned K) drive?
• I actually wanted to completely wipe my C) drive. Start with a fresh slate, and sift the wheat from the chaff while transferring files and programs back over. But all my old data is still showing up on C). Note: All of this data was cloned to K). Should I just wipe C) and reinstall on a fresh drive?
• Are programs transferable? Or will I need to reinstall?
• Steam.exe updated itself and seems to work fine. I noticed some tearing while playing TF2. Maybe driver related?

I'm heading off to work and won't be able to play with this for a few hours. Hoping to tap the knowledge base here to save myself some time when I get home. Also under a bit of a time crunch: I need to wipe and return the borrowed drive to work by tomorrow night.

 

[gimp]

What OS were you upgrading from? You can't actually do an upgrade from XP anyway; but the "Fresh install" does save all the old files.

sounds like you didn't delete the existing partition or at least format the drive prior to the Win7 install.

why not just copy/paste from the cloned drive?
You cannot simply copy/paste/migrate applications; they require additional registry entries, possibly registered dll driver files, etc. You would need to reinstall the apps.

To use the Windows Easy Transfer, you still need the old OS operational. You would run Easy Transfer on the existing install of the old OS, it would copy the files, you would then upgrade, run the Easy Transfer again, and it would pull the data.

Since you've already upgraded, it would be easiest to simply copy/paste the files from the old OS.

 

[semisonic9]

Upgrading from Vista x64.

Turns out I accidentally installed the 32-bit version of Windows 7. I decided to take off and nuke it from orbit. Wiped the drive to DoD specs, then installed the correct version of Windows 7. Used ninite to reinstall most of my basic programs, updated my drivers, and created a restore point and a system disk. I'm migrating data over from the cloned drive now.