Windows 7: Win 7 on Logical D: want to move to Primary C: or merge both

Hi all,
I have a laptop that used to be running XP, I installed windows 7 onto the D: partition that I had for a while. This partition is Logical.
After using win 7 for a while I had no use to the XP partition and wanted the space back.
I formatted the partition that had XP on it, that caused my laptop not to boot because it lost BOOTMGR, I was able to fix it by copying the win 7 install disk to the C: root. That let me do a system repair and boot to windows 7. Thankfully.

Well, now I want to get my C: back and I'm not sure of the best way.
-Can I change the D: from logical to primary/active? I haven't been able to do it using -MiniTool Partition Magic (it sees the partition as Unallocated)
-Can I just merge the D: and C: back into one partition?
-Can I transfer the D: to C:

Not really sure of the best plan of attack. But from what I understand I need to first get the D: logical partition that has win 7 set to be primary/active?

Here are the screen shots of computer management and the 'unallocated' partition.

I would clean reinstall after wiping the HD since Windows 7 was never installed correctly by booting installer so it would claim C when booted: Clean Install Windows 7
SSD - HDD Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

In addition there are other problems since I've never seen PW CD fail to see the booted Windows 7 partition. Try using the PW boot CD.

PW should not only see Windows 7 but if you want Windows 7 on D allow you to convert D to Primary, then you can follow these steps to resize into C while recovering the System boot files into Windows 7 by marking Active and running Startup Repair 3 times: Partition Recover Space Used by an Older OS

Thanks for the reply,
I'd rather not do a fresh install, I have my Win 7 set up juuuust how I want it.

At the moment its not killing me having the install directory on the D: but I would like to tidy things up if I can.

The guide you posted about recovering the old partition space will help me out with this I think, I just need to see if I can set this D: partition as primary or active in some way.

I was reading also that in some cases PW was reporting OS partitions as unallocated but couldnt nail down a cause.

Thanks for the help.

Try the PW boot disk. You need to convert D to Logical before it will accept the Active flag and then the System boot files using the method given.

Then you can recover the disk space from deleted C, once you know D will boot without it because it shows the System Active flags.

If it won't convert then you'll need to figure out why or keep the boot files on C which you can then shrink to contain only the System boot files.

OK, so I got a different partition application (Aomei) and that allowed me to set the Logical D as Primary. Success.
I set the D: as Active in Computer Management and rebooted. No so much success.

It booted into nothing and I had to set the Active flag back to C: on another PC using the laptop hdd in a caddy. Though that is to be expected based on the linked article as I should then get into the Repair options. The Win 7 install files that I had on C: I was hoping would be seen during the boot process and it would use them like it did previously, guess I need to go out and get a DVD to burn the Win 7 image to instead. That will be a job for tomorrow. Can't even remember the last time I bought DVDs.

Thanks for the help

Did you miss the next step to boot into Windows 7 DVD or Repair CD System Recovery Options to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots until Windows 7 starts and the target partition holds the System Active flags?

Not exactly, I just didn't have the win 7 DVD, I had the ISO extracted to C: in the hope that it would recognise it while it tried to boot. I have to go out and get a DVD and a CD now. Will post back with results.

How did you succeed in installing in a drive called D? Windows ALWAYS calls it's own partition C as far as I know.

I had win XP running on C: and wanted to get dual boot going so installed Win 7 on my D: partition.

But how?? From installation DVD, from USB stick? ... how?

C is just a logical description of an partition. You can alter it in winxp to S and then only winxp sees it as S! But never change driveletter of OS-partition!!! Many registry and file pointers point to the original driveletter... making your system unbootable

Normally in your config and start winxp:
-windowsxp system disk should be C
-other partition (Windows 7) is normally D, in case you have an cd/dvd drive maybe E


Normally in your config and start Windows 7:
-windows7 system disk should be C
-other partition (winxp) is normally D, in case you have an cd/dvd drive maybe E