So, 7 won't see a SATA HDD during install if it has something on it.
How I wish I'd formatted before dismantling the PC..

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Yeah running XP 32bit within Windows works fine for me.

No performance drops for me. I like the mapped drive bit in My Computer where it just picks your local drives up as mapped drives from Windows 7.

The silly thing is with VMware there is no compatibilty issue as such. Just runs if you have sufficent processing and memory.

But with the Windows 7 Virtualization you are required to have specific hardware or it just point blank refuses to work.

The best thing to do is check before upgrade (or fresh install)

As it stands with me, its working and it is still working without any issues.

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You could always format you disk using a Linux live bootdisk. Something like Knoppix or Ubuntu LiveCD will do just fine.

If you aren't fimiliar with Linux just use Google to help you out in finding a way to format it with the LiveCD.

I always use a LiveCD to shred (randomly right data to your disk) before I sell a harddisk.

Got the win 7 Pro version in the end which had VM as a download, I've never needed it though. Sooo glad I skipped Vista and went straight from 32bit XP to 64bit 7.

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