Is it safe to delete an almost empty partition?

If only the one hard drive is listed in BIOS Boot Priority order then there should be another way to set the Win7 hard drive as first to boot. This is normally done by a setting that sets the hard drive priority, so check again for a way to do this. You'd want to set the Disk1 Win7 hard drive as Primary. There is always a way to do this.

Is there a way to change the SATA ports to achieve the same thing?

It's strange that your report it is Disk1 in the BIOS Boot Priority list, since it would have to be Disk0 presently being booted first with the System Reserved partition still being System Active and booting Win7 on Disk1. Are you sure it is Disk1 that is listed in the BIOS Boot Priority order? System Active flags always point to the partition which is booting Win7.

Once you find a way to change Disk1 to boot first in the BIOS, then you can move the Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD - Windows 7 Forums until the System Active labels are on C and System Reserved is no longer booting Win7. Then change the boot order at reboot to Disk1 booting first.

If there is no way to do this, then you can leave it the way it is, being mindful that Win7 is being booted from System Reserved on the other hard drive, format the space to the right of System Reserved to use for your Linux partition which is easiest to Dual Boot as discussed here: Dual boot Ubuntu-Win7

AddRAM said:

Where are you with this ? Have you written the system files to the C: Windows partition yet ? Did you format the other hard drive yet ?

Could you post a most recent shot of disk management ?

You'll have to go to post #7, further up the thread to see my current disks, to compare with the ones in my original post.

If you can't change HD boot priority I explained there should be another setting to give preference to a HD by making it Primary. Every BIOS should have one or the other.

Can you take camera snaps showing all listings on BIOS setup Advanced and Boot tabs?

Otherwise I told you how to settle for what you have.

AddRAM said:

Please answer my questions, have you gotten anything done, and I need your latest image of disk management, not one from post # 7, that is old.

Well, the computer expert who came to help me moved the bootloader to C:\, but the System Reserved partition is still there. As for the screenshot, the one in #7 is the latest one - I haven't done anything since I took it.

gregrocker said:

If you can't change HD boot priority I explained there should be another setting to give preference to a HD by making it Primary. Every BIOS should have one or the other.

Can you take camera snaps showing all listings on BIOS setup Advanced and Boot tabs?

Otherwise I told you how to settle for what you have.

There really is no setting to change the HD boot priority in my BIOS. Sorry!

However, would it be possible to open my laptop and change the cables round so Disk 1 boots rather than Disk 0?

You'll need to read the manual on the laptop Support Downloads webpage to see how to access the hard drive port. Take a look at it. Might also be a video via google for accessing HD on your model.

gregrocker said:

You'll need to read the manual on the laptop Support Downloads webpage to see how to access the hard drive port. Take a look at it. Might also be a video via google for accessing HD on your model.

I looked at the user manual which is on the DVD which came with my computer and the service manual which I downloaded from the Internet, and both provide useful information on how to remove and replace the HDD, but no information on the SATA ports or the cables.