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I'm running XP Pro on my Toshiba laptop that I'm going to upgrade to Win 7 very soon.

The laptop came with Vista pre-installed but had a downgrade option to XP Pro which I exercised. There was no installation media, just a recovery disk builder which if memory serves me correctly I used to burn both Vista and XP recovery/installation disks.

I'll be purchasing a retail Win Pro 7 Upgrade.

According to this page under Currently running Windows XP

Customers with Windows XP can purchase Windows 7 Upgrade versions but must back up their files, clean install, and then reinstall their applications.

I have no other option but to do a clean install (fine by me).

During this clean install will the Win 7 installer ask me for my original media? If so will my burnt recovery disks satisfy the requirement?

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No, my understanding is that it will check the hard drive for the existence for the previous version of Windows and act accordingly.

I believe you'll need to start setup from within Windows XP.

Here is a guide detailing the process.

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In that case I wonder what I would do if later down the track I needed to do a clean Win7 install due to hardware failure or virus infestation? I couldn't start it from inside WinXP then. – LachlanG Oct 22 '09 at 3:55
@LachlanG: What about taking a backup disk image of your XP install first using Symantec Ghost (or a free equivalent)? – Umber Ferrule Oct 22 '09 at 11:50
Unfortunately I don't have a way to test that, hopefully someone who has knowledge can drop an answer. – Joshua Oct 22 '09 at 13:54
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