Reinstalling Win 7 help

[Ragnarok]

I downloaded a copy of Win7 through and agreement with my college & Microsoft to replaced my XP OS.  

I have a single 250G HD that had the Xp OS, damage from a virus, and a whole pile of useless crap that I wanted to clear off when installing Win7.  I chose the 'Custom' install as it said that whatever was in the partition would be deleted aside from XP which would be put in a file labelled 'oldcomputer' or something to that affect.   I took this to mean that it would basically wipe the drive (no partitions=whole drive)  and have only the Win7 OS installed.  To my dismay, I was wrong.  I see that I still have 200G of crap I didn't want saved.  I already backed up what I wanted to keep to an external drive.

I would like to either 1: Try and format this drive somehow and reinstall Win7 on the EMPTY drive.
                         or  2: Get a new HD(could use more space anyway and this one is already 4yrs old)

Are either of these choices viable?  What is the official policy with using a CD key again?  I'm still installing it on the same pc but if the HD is different will MS let me?

[papasmurff]

I don't know really... I remember when I purchased my windows 7 they told me that the electronic version I would be able to use to reinstall the OS... So i would assume that means you can use the key again to reinstall it.  I would format and reinstall...but i don't know how that would work with the electronic DL... unless you could burn that to a bootable DVD... or write down the code from your online account and borrow an install DVD from someone.... This is the reason that I specifically had them ship me the DVD....

You could also delete the windows.old file.... but i know that really isn't the same.....

[Ragnarok]

Thanks.  The electronic version came as a CD image so I was able to burn & install.  I was never sure about MS' CD key reuse on new hardware.  I gave them a call and apparently all versions of Win 7 except Ultimate can be installed on up to 3 computers w/same cd key.  I guess I'm ok to install that new a HD now.

[Meisterbrew]

Honestly and truthfully you can get M$ to activate a toaster....twice...  Ive activated my copy of xp more than 25+ times and vista arround 5 before i went to linux.

Be honest about it...   Only installed on one computer and the machine (or old machine) is deactivated/formated and they will activate it.  If they struggle then just be stern w/ em.