I have Windows 32bit installed. My PC supports 64 bit. When I purchased Windows 7 for this PC it came with two disks. Win 7 32 and Win 7 64. I want to upgrade from 32bit to 64bit but i'v got a problem that makes me want to harm people. I put the disk in the drive to boot from CD. It goes to black screens with a white-ish/grey loading bar and loads files. Then a blue wallpaper comes up that looks like this. And then nothing happens. The PC doesn't lock up because I can move the courser around. IF I open the disk trey and close it and let it sit for a moment the courser changes to a loading icon and the screen says "Starting Setup" or some crap and it just sit's there. Nothing more happens. PC still isn't frozen because the mouse and the icon is still moving. I have no clue what to do. My HDD and disk drive are both fine as a side note.
Windows can't be upgraded from 32bit to 64bit, you'll need to do a fresh install. But if you are booting from the CD is it a sata optical drive or IDE? If it's sata make sure it's set to ide mode in the bios. Also be patient, it can take a couple of mins for setup to run... The other alternative is to install from a flash drive...my preferred method.
Everything what pill said, + even with a flash drive, the setup needs some time to start. My favourite method, is: Creating a Bootable Windows 7 Install Partition http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A5RE0ZefrOg
It's IDE. Before I attempted to install i checked Microsofts main page to see what needed to be done and this is what it said: "To install a 64-bit version of Windows 7 on a computer running a 32-bit version of Windows, you'll need to start, or boot, your computer using a 64-bit Windows 7 installation disc or files." (yes, i'm booting from CD. It's the same drive I used to install the 32 bit W7 on this PC when I first got it) That's what I did. They should go into more detail as it's pretty vague other than that. You would think they would make installing OS's easier these days.
Try running the windows installer from in windows. It will then install a new copy and put your current install into a folder called Windows.old Might get you round the hanging problem
DK is talking about a dualboot system, so if not wanting to format, hes suggesting the correct procedure.