Hey
My system is windows 7 home premium 32 bit. I had to make it a dual boot in order to run a program and had installed win XP in my F drive(named as WINXPSP3). But now I no longer need XP and want to return to my original Win 7 config with 3 partitions (C, E, F). Can you help me with this? I've attached a screenshot of my disk management map.
Cheers and Thanks.
Hello nabthegreat, welcome to Seven Forums!
I would suggest you do a partition-specific wipe secure erase of the F: Logical drive first to completely over-write the XP code to get the best possible space to use for data storage in future, have a look at Option Two of this tutorial linked below for some ideas and be sure to post back with any further questions you may have and to keep us informed.
If you choose to do so, the Partition Wizard installed version will work well for this, the boot CD is not needed, at this link below.
Hi nabthegreat
Follow the above post by BFK, & than use EasyBCD to remove Win XP listing in the Boot Menu,
Thanks for that Ray, perhaps that should be done before the wipe; here's a link to the EasyBCD software to be installed to Windows 7 and run from there.
If you want to keep E and F then simply Format F in Disk Management.
What is the 11.77gb Primary partition on the right end which shows empty? Unhide Hidden and System files in Control Panel>Folder Options>View to check for sure.
If there is nothing in that partition you can delete it and extend F into the space, or give it a letter to use for storage also.
Hey everyone,
Thank you very much for the replies. I have EasyBCD already installed in my laptop.
@BFK and theog : The option 2 in partition Wizard tutorial sounds like the solution I need. But i have some queries. If i use this, then I won't need to touch anything of my C or E drives right? and would i be able to use my F drive for regular storage? And I won't need to reboot win 7 in this method?
@gregrocker : I don't have any clue what that 11.77 gb is being used for. It just says it's a healthy primary partition (and I don't know what that means) even after I unhid the hidden files as you mentioned. And just another doubt, when you said format F in disk management, then does that mean I don't have to go through the partition wizard process that BFK mentioned?
Thanks a lot again! :)
There is no reason to wipe the partition which is a process to overwrite the underlying data which new data does anyway. A simple Format or Delete, Create then Format will work just fine.
Open your Partition Wizard program, rightclick on the 1.77gb space to Explore if any files are hidden on there.
If not, you can rightclick>delete it, click OK, then rightclick>Resize F into that space by dragging its right grey border to the right, OK, Apply Steps.
As EasyBCD is no longer freeware, you can delete the XP listing if it remains in msconfig>Boot tab.
If you want the best possible space to store data in future, do the wipe, a format does nothing.
Information
Contrary to popular belief, doing a full format with Windows 7 only over-writes the old disk format configuration data (the MBR) with the new and checks for sector errors, then marks the remaining space to be over-written as needed, it does not over-write (remove) any other data at all, it's all still there including code from previous Operating Systems and all of the old personal data.
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