Problem with old installations

Hi, I hope this is a simple fix.

I initially installed windows 7 64-bit onto a brand new hard disk (in a brand new built PC). I did so using the windows 7 DVD, and created two partitions, one for the OS and one for data. The installation was successful with no problems. Windows showed C: drive for the OS and D: for data.

For various reasons after a few days I then needed to remove Windows 7 and install windows XP. So I booted with the XP disk and the setup showed me 3 partitions in total including the windows 7 "system" partition. In the XP setup I deleted that partition, and the main OS partition. I left the data partition alone. I created one new partition in the space and installed XP onto that. The installation was succesful, I had C: and D: drives in windows.

Again for various reasons I now wish to return to Windows 7 (permamently!). So I booted with the Win 7 disk and the setup showed two partitions. I selected to format the C: partition (the one with XP on). I then selected to install Windows 7 on that partition.

Upon completion of the install it is clear that a legacy of either XP or the earlier Windows 7 is causing a few issues. Firstly on boot up the boot manager screen appears asking if I would like to boot to "windows 7" or "earlier version of windows". I select Windows 7, and then once in windows, only disk C: is shown in explorer. If I go into disk manager, I can see the other partition and I can enable it but in the list of available drive letters, D: is NOT available. I have to select E:. Finally, I have a USB card reader, which previously showed as 4 removable drives; this is now NOT shown in explorer.

To remedy this I have already tried one further re-install of Win 7 with a complete delete / create / format of the OS partition but still I get the same results. If anyone can advise of a way to completely delete ALL legacy installs from my hard disk I would be very grateful.

Thanks so much for your help, think I have it fixed now. Ran the startup repair twice, first one was scary it said the boot manager was missing when it tried to restart but second time was OK. Getting bootup straight to windows now and card reader has come back. Had to re-assign drive letters, D: was set to DVD ROM drive and E: to data partition, so I reversed those and looks all good now. Only slight concern is that I do not see the "system reserved" partition in drive manager - I think it was shown in my first installation. Do you think this is an issue? Also I assume I should keep the C: partition marked as "active"? Thanks again.

So as regards the system reserved partition I think I have lost that, reading up on it I am guessing it is only created when you install into "unallocated space". On my last install I selected an already formatted partition so the reserved partition was not created. I can live with that and use the DVD if required. For future, if I ever need to re-install again I guess the best way would be to just point to the OS partition and say I want to install windows 7 to that, without recourse to manual deletion / re-formating?

Thanks a lot this is very useful information.