How I Upgraded My Sony Laptop to Windows 7 Ultimate

Posted by Sech in News, Tips on Oct 8th, 2009 | one response

Yesterday I received my Windows 7 Launch Home Party package. I posted the photos of the package on our House Party home page.

Yes, the Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition was in the party package.

Windows 7 Ultimate Signature Edition

I have a Sony Vaio VGN-FZ180E Laptop. Sony's eSupport site indicates:

Information about upgrade and support for Windows® 7 for the VGNFZ180E VAIO® model will be available when Windows® 7 is officially released by Microsoft. Please check back then for further information.

Hey, I will be hosting a Windows 7 Launch Party on the day Windows 7 is officially released. I need to be able install it way before then.

I am posting this using my Sony Vaio Laptop that is running the Windows 7 Ultimate I received in my House Party package. Here is how I upgraded my Sony laptop to Windows 7:

I really did not want to take the chance of losing my Vista setup and decided to first clone my hard drive and install the Windows 7 upgrade on the new hard drive. I have been thinking about upgrading my laptop's hard drive anyway. Sony laptop owners take note though: You may void your warranty if you replace your laptop's hard drive. Read your warranty first. If you follow the steps I followed, you will preserve your current hard drive in its current condition and you can swap it back in if something goes wrong.

I had already purchased a Fujitsu MHZ2320BJ-G2 320GB 7200 RPM 16MB Cache 2.5" SATA 3.0Gb/s Internal Notebook Hard Drive and a APRICORN EZ-UP-UNIVERSAL 2.5" USB 2.0 Hard Drive Upgrade Kit from my favorite online shopping site:

Everything you want for your computer and more at Newegg.com.

Here are the simple steps I followed:

1. Deactivate any DRM software like iTunes.
2. Turn off the computer.
3. Take the old hard drive out.
4. Put the new hard drive in the laptop.
5. Put the old hard drive in the Apricorn's external enclosure and connect enclosure to the computer's USB port.
6. Turn the computer on, put Apricorn EZ Gig II CD in the DVD Drive and boot from CD.
7. Select the Clone Hard Drive option and follow the prompts. Make sure to check Typical Upgrade and clone your hard drive as is even if your new hard drive is larger than the old one. You can resize the partitions later. Be carefull in checking source and destination drives. Remember: Your source drive is your old drive that is connected to the USB.
8. The process, in my case, took about three hours. At the end I disconnected the Apricorn external drive and took the EZ Gig CD out and rebooted to my new hard drive.
9. Final step is to put the Windows 7 DVD and start the upgrade process.

I am happy to report that the Windows 7 upgrade process is painless. My computer did not freeze in the process and it did not take long.

All my programs, including Lotus SmartSuite which supposedly had compatibility issues in Vista, are working without any problems so far. All my settings, documents, pictures and favorites are intact. Wireless connection did not require any adjustments.

I have a better laptop with a larger and faster hard drive and a much better operating system.