Micky wrote:
Vista part at **.

I'm sorry to ask elementary questions, but where on the HDD does win7
have to be installed. Does it have to be near the beginning of the
drive like some earlier OSes did?

I have a 500 GB drive with 2 100-GB partitions already. If I create a
3rd 100 GB partition, can I install win7 there?

**
Actually a better question is, can I clone Vista to this new position
and start Vista there, so that I can upgrade Vista to 7.

I can't face the chore of installing all the various programs in 7
when they are already installed in Vista, unless there is a strong
reason to do a fresh install and not install 7 over Vista.

On a hard drive which is not short-stroked, the beginning
of the disk has 2x the sequential speed of the very end
of the disk. The outer ring of the platter is the speedy part.
The inner ring, slow as molasses.

Of course, everything benefits from being near the outer
edge, and you cannot put everything out there.

I have one drive which is short-stroked, and it has
a much flatter curve.

The drive on the left is short-stroked. There is no
need to "fight for the best position" with that drive.
That drive is 1TB capacity, and the heads only move
from the outer ring to the center of the platter. The
heads never touch the inner ring, and never go near
the slow part.

http://s29.postimg.org/8b7cj872v/wd500gb.gif

Short-stroking is not documented, and is not
guaranteed. I was quite surprised to find it
on the drive. But the fact the manufacturer
no longer makes drives below 1TB, explains why
it happened. The drive exists as a short-term
gap filler in the market - they take 1TB drives
and degrade them to 500GB, and charge $10 less
for them. I didn't know this was the case, until
I started trying to figure out what was going on.
When the 500GB drive is removed from the market,
the 1TB drive it is based on, will have the usual
2X ratio between outside and inside.

Paul