Upgrading hard drive on dell inspiron 1501

[lakebass]

I just upgraded my hard drive from 120gb to 250gb and now it is not allowing me to install windows 7.

Do I need to change anything in the BIOS?


I am installing from a USB drive. The drive is okay because it works in another laptop.

Maybe I got a bad hard drive.


Opinions

 

[AntiZig]

You will need to contact either Dell or Microsoft to figure out your license for win7 (I'd say call up dell first)

an OEM lincense, which is what dell typically uses, limits your windows installation only to your computer. However, the way it keeps track of whether this is your machine or not is by remembering the system configuration of your hardware. So, when you changed the hard drive the system configuration changed, which is why it is not letting you install windows on it.

 

[lakebass]

The computer originally had Vista. I installed a new hard drive so the operating system is now gone. So why can't I just install a new hard drive and install Windows 7 on it? I don't see why I can't. There are no errors but it seems the hard drive is not being told to load. The old hard drive had a password. Does this matter?

Thanks

 

[AntiZig]

"hdd had a password on it", I'm curious to know where that password was stored... since I don't know that I cannot judge whether this password could be the cause of your issue.

anyhow, if you have a fresh copy of win7 retail that shouldn't present a problem.

when the computer boots up, go into BIOS and check that your new HDD is recognized.

if not, check what the drive mode set to IDE or AHCI, you might have to switch this parameter for HDD to be recognized properly.