Windows 7 - A fresh win7 install over a win7/vista dual boot system ?

Hello all,

I have a vaio laptop with a dual boot Windows 7/vista setup. I simply want to format the whole drive back to one large c:\drive, then reinstall windows 7. I have heard horror stories of people saying their boot manager becomes corrupted. or goes missing. I enclose a snapshot of my hard drive config. I would appreciate any advice on this matter.

Thanks

is it the only HDD in the laptop (i used to think 1 was the max but i've been encountering people with two recently)? If so, (and if you want to wipe the hard drive completely (don't forget to deactivate any programs, such as iTunes)) just put the install disc in, boot into it (without booting into windows), choose the install option that isn't 'upgrade' (i think it's 'custom' offhand). when it takes you to the partition manager, click 'advanced' on the bottom bit and delete and format all partitions until you have just one big empty disk.
If that doesn't work or if you think it might not, just boot into a Puppy Linux live cd, open up gparted and select the 'new partition table' tool.

Hi biggles1000,

It has one HD. Your reply makes sense to me. My one outstanding question is , will this method avoid any issues with the boot manager? As previously mentioned i want want the boot manager to automatically removed/deleted when i perform a fresh Windows 7 install by following your advice. I have heard that some folks have recieved the message "boot mgr missing" when booting up into their freshly installed Windows 7 system.

P.S.
thanks for the itunes deactivation tip, I didn't think of that at all.

1) If you delete both partitions & reformat, than reboot to HD (not the DVD) you will receive "boot mgr missing".

2) If you delete both partitions & reformat, than install Windows 7, you will not receive "boot mgr missing".

No problem
Yeah, theog is right, the windows installation will write a new MBR (as far as I know) that relates to the new install, so you shouldn't have any troubles (unless you go dabbling with Linux :P )

Crystal clear guys, crystal clear. I shall carry this out over the W/E. One final question: I have tons of synth vst apps ,as well as std apps, all with thier respective data on my d:\ drive. they amount to about 45gb. is there anyway i can back up these apps ,config settings and data to my spare drive and somehow quickly restore them once i have done the Windows 7 fresh install. Otherwise it will consume many days to reinstall and reconfigure them?

Thanks tremendously

I think just copying and pasting them across might work. If not, try the windows backup tool and create an image of that drive.

If you remove the partitions and format the drive via the windows dvd, your programs will all be destroyed. I recommend that you copy your data to another drive and then save all your serial numbers and updates to programs before you do the deletion of partitions and formats. All data will be destroyed on the C drive.

Rich

Tips for getting a perfect reinstall based on hundreds done here: Reinstalling Windows 7