I'm not a hardcore linux user, and only tend to use it when windows selfdestructs or on very obsolete computers for performance reasons, so the following may be a series of dumb things to have done.
They SEEMED innocent and foolproof, but every time I try a windows install I find amazing new problems, so whatever.

 Yesterday, having grown frustrated with my haggard XP install, I decided to do some file shuffling and cleaning, my goal being to migrate (back) to windows 7 by way of a digitalriver ISO burned (through several methods including the MS win7 download tool, imageburn, etc) to a DVD.
 I began by installing ubuntu 12.04 from a usb flash drive, followed by moving all my important files to a single extended partition on my internal 1TB drive.
 These files were sourced from two other extended partitions on that drive, as well as one older IDE drive through a USB enclosure.
 After moving all these files I formatted both the external drive as well as the two now unused partitions on the internal drive to NTFS, their original formatting.

 The drive now looks kinda like this:
[Dell Partition(or whatever)][Recovery Partiton(or whatever)][Clean Partition][FileBackups Partition][Clean Partition][Two small partitions, I guess linux/swap]

 I then tried to transfer these backup files to the freshly formatted enclosure-USB-harddrive-thing, and found that Ubuntu completely froze about a third of the way through the file transfer.
 Since 133GB of data transfers VERY slowly through USB, and since the unexpected and unprovoked freeze/forced hard reboot event corrupted the external drive requiring a reformat, I did not attempt this again.
This is particularly frustrating, as this data is valuable, and my goal of completely formatting the internal 1TB drive prior to installing windows7 is now impossible.

 Whatever, I'll just install Win7 to the first clean partition, right?
No, none of the burned DVDs will boot, at all, irrespective of the burn method.

 Finding that I could not through any method boot to any of my burned DVDs, seeing a blank screen with a blinking underscore or a "Disk Error, press any key to reboot" message when attempting to, I thought I'd try using the external HD. Should be easy, right?
No, still no luck. Why would anything work?

 So, copying the contents of the win7 iso to a clean external HD doesn't work either.
I can boot to it fine, and the install process ACTUALLY STARTS AND SEEMS TO FUNCTION.
I select my language etc, I select which partition to install to, and it goes through each of its normal steps up to the point where it must reboot.
False hope and lies, all of it.
 At the first required reboot of the install process, if I don't F12 and force boot to the external drive with the install media, I get a blank black screen with a blinking white underscore, and nothing more, or maybe a 'disk error' message, or something.
 If I DO boot to the external drive, the install STARTS COMPLETELY OVER.

 I know it can SEE the files created by the first install process, because it asks if it can move them to a windows.old file! Madness. Sheer stupidity. Urge to kill...

 I can even boot into Ubuntu using the flashdrive and look at the partially completed windows install, exactly as youd expect it to appear. For this ordeal to be halted HERE, where I can SEE MY GOAL, is beweildering. Par for the course with modern bullshit computing, though.

So, to sum up:

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 My files are in limbo on a drive that apparently needs formatting, or has a corrupt MBR, or some fucking other ridiculousness, due to Ubuntu completely failing to transfer them in bulk to an otherwise functional IDE drive through a USB enclosure. It crashes 1/3rd of the way through, completely hanging, requiring a forced restart as well as a reformatting of the external drive as a consequence. Thats what I get for trusting... any of this simple process to actually work.

 The windows install process fails to continue after the first required reboot, apparently due to some stupid shit I cant even begin to fathom, and seems to somehow have destroyed my ability to boot into the ubuntu install, either through some partition table nonsense or something.

 The windows install process starts over if I try to boot to the drive with the install media on it.
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 Please, someone give me a fucking feasible way of installing win7 to this machine while retaining my prized data. I don't have the patience to keep googling and finding nothing.



p.s. The external drive seems to lack the bootmgr.efi file which is present on the burned install DVD.
Ubuntu cant even fucking SEE the dvd drive, so I can't copy that file to that drive, lol.
Also, Ubuntu apparently cant mount or extract UDF iso files properly, so that wont work either.

Yeah there are probably some obscure hugely inconvenient to install packages i can get through a terminally annoying terminal process, but that sucks, I have to do that each time I reboot so, no.