Windows 7: Making the partition Seven is installed on "Primary"

I installed Seven on a partitioned 320gb Hard drive on my Dell Laptop. Unfortunately being a novice I didn't nominate the partition as my "Primary" drive. I now have decided to get rid of XP home on the other partition and go for the "virtual" option. Seven has proven to be very stable and I really see no need to use XP any more except for the odd program that doesn't work with 7.
How do I change my & "C" drive to the primary drive and format the "D" drive to just run "XP Virtual" and store files?
I have ASEUS, but it won't let me format the drive, just change it's size.
Thanks,
Col

First off welcome to the sevenforums!

The new XP mode isn't run from a second or any other partition but seen on the 7 primary itself. You first install the new Virtual PC beta along with the XP mode itself on 7.

Any version of Windows is installed onto a primary to start with. If you installed 7 on the first you can simply use the second for a storage partition there.

The reason the drive can't be reformatted is likely due to the method you are using for that. On hard drives were Windows has been preinstalled by a company there is also a hidden recovery partition not seen in Windows but viewable in a separate drive partitioning tool usually about 10gb in size.

Thanks Night Hawk, the way my poor old brain is working, I think I'm gonna need all the help I can get lol.
From what you are saying, the only way to install Win 7 as my primary is to format the original "C" drive and strt all over again, which is fine, because I've got everything I need backed up to my external drive. But I tried to do that EASEUS and it won't allow me.
Obviously I'm missing something and as this is the first time I've tried to do any of this stuff, I guess that is not surprising.
Could you point me to any documentation that would help please? I've been Googling my fingers to the bone and I just can't find out how to do it. How do I get rid of the recovery partition?
You're probably going to regret replying to my post, you poor thing lol.
Thanks so much,
Col

Vista 32bit drivers are available at the Dell support page for that model. None were seen for the 64bit however. The 32bit RC shouldn't have any problems going on and running. What is seen in the recovery partition is all the original drivers as well as prepaged softwares for XP there.

I've heard the name easeus being a free partitioning program while booted in Windows which can't reformat a partition you are seeing Windows loaded from. In order to remove the recovery partition entirely if you no plans of restoring XP with a set of recovery disks booting from a live cd in order to run a different drive tool independent of any OS being loaded would be the option there.

The tool in mind used regularly here is the Gnome Partition Editor better known as GParted live for cd being a free Linux partitioning tool. It works on a multiple OS basis and can read up on at GPARTED DOCUMENTATION - GENERALITIES

Some additional screens are also seen at GParted -- Screenshots

The latest stable release 0.4.5-2 is found at SourceForge.net: GParted: Files

Note that comes in zip file and ISO disk image form. You will need a cd writer or dvd burner in order to burn the iso image to a cd-r as well as any burning program that supports ISO burning like ImgBurn or a few others I name off here.

As far as regret for replying here? naaaa.... I'm simply too stubborn!

Besides the GParted live cd the latest ubuntu 9.04 release a live for cd Linux distribution also sees the latest of one of the latest versions of GParted included as well. If you lack a burner but have a usb flash or pen drive onhand you can also use a "usb key" for one of the iso images either for GParted or ubuntu. USB Windows 7 Installation Key Drive - Create

In fact there's a link there for an excellent shareware version of UltraISO where you can make up a 7 usb key saving on blank media while the idea of GParted or ubuntu live is simply for repartitioning the drive there.

Thanks mate, you are a fountain of knowledge and I'm gonna have to read this a few times to work out all the details lol!
Than you so much again for taking the time to help.
I have a dvd burner and of course Win 7 has an iso burner if I remember correctly so I won't have a problem there. I've been thinking of trying Ubuntu as an alternative (this techo stuff is becoming addictive), so I might download it and give it a try.
Window 7 is so very intuitive and I'm very impressed so far.
I can recommend EASEUS as a free and very easy to use program for beginners like myself, here is the link for all those who might be interested:- Hard Drive Data Recovery Software. Disk Recovery & Data Recovery Tools to Recover Deleted Files - EASEUS Data Recovery

A good number of people here are already familiar with the free version of the Partition Master as it is called. The GParted live cd or using GParted while booted live from the 9.04 release worked well here for another type of custom installation lately. When previously trying out the 8.10 release however

I found GParted to be too limited mainly to seeing a drive taken over completely for ubuntu not a separate app as now seen available in the programs section on the 9.04. For nuking the entire drive to see one large primary the last few releases of GParted by itself as well as the one in the 9.04 will handle that for you.

Thanks again, I'm on the job now.

Well if you get stuck on anything you know where to come for help! Hope it goes well for you there. It takes a little bit but you'll get the hang of it fast.

Should work, it did for me anyways, now im duallbooting Windows 7 and ubuntu 9.04 on my laptop good luck

The idea behind booting the live ubuntu cd itself would serve a dual purpose with the latest 9.04 release out now. 1)the not so limited version of GParted included 2)trying out the distro without the need to install to the drive first.

In fact with a laptop not seeing all that great amount of space plus trashing the new look for the 7 boot screen replacing that with either the Grub loader or adding ubuntu into the 7 BCD but seeing the Vista boot screen instead of 7's if the EasyBCD tool is used it kind of takes things away a bit.

For laptop users there's another way to install externally on a usb device. The method I outlined on another thread can also serve a dual purpose as well. Using the "Other OS" For a USB Rescue Device?

That preserves 7 from the start by seeing any distro installed elsewhere along with providing a data recovery tool to top that off. I made up a usb key for GParted that just came in handy lately as well when the optical drive on a friend's XP machine refused to boot a live cd or the 7 dvd when he wanted to try 7 out there.

The XP primary was reduced by booting from the usb key to see that happen.