Dual booting vista and windows 7, want to remove vista all together

Hi Patty -

Can you please post back a sceenshot of your full Disk management drive map, using Snipping Tool in Start Menu, attaching file using paper clip in Reply Box.

We can give you the exact steps to removing the Recovery and any other partitions you don't want, recovering the disk space into Win7, and be sure your System Active MBR is correctly placed.

Before doing any of this, however, it might be best to run your maker's HD diagnostics/repair full CD scan you can download and burn to CD from this list: Hard Drive Diagnostics Tools and Utilities (Storage) - TACKtech Corp. Determine your HD maker by Googling the exact HD name in Device Manager - should be like a serial number.

Back up your files before running the Diagnostics as it will repair your HD using it's laser if necessary.

Spen said:

Alright, this is what's going on.

I installed vista on my harddrive, and then made a partition and installed windows 7 on it.


I no longer want vista, and just want windows 7.

How would I go about deleting vista all together, and just have windows 7?


If I make the windows 7 partition active, it won't boot.

Thanks!

Ok... I gather you've got a thumbdrive with at least 4gb of space...
What you need to do is set a thumb drive up as a windows 7 installer. Now here's the catch... you can only do this from a working windows 7 computer. This means you have to somehow get a copy of all the files from a win7 DVD onto your tumb drive... You can do this by copying them from your windows DVD on another machine.

Ok... so now you've got a copy of the files on your thumb drive.

Copy the BOOT folder to your netbook's hard disk giving you a C:\Boot folder.

Make note of your thumb drive's disk letter (For our example we'll call it Q: )

Now open a cmd shell... WindowsKey+r... type CMD and click OK.

Type the following...

CD \BOOT
BOOTSECT /NT60 Q: ......<-- Substitute your own drive letter for Q

Now you should have a bootable flash drive...

Next when you start the netbook take a close look at the first screen... you are looking for a message that tells you to "Press F12 for Boot Menu" or something very similar... Restart the netbook again and nail the indicated key to get into the boot menu.

Select your thumb drive from the boot menu.

Now, if all went well, you should see "Windows is loading files" and you're in the win7 installer.

Let the first few screens go by until you get into the partitioning wizard...
In the wizard click "More Options" (I think) and use the tools there to totally delete all partions on your hard disk.
Next make a new partition ... you can make more than one if you want but win7 is going to need at least 15000 megabytes to work.
Format the first partition ( It will be labeled as C: )
Select it and go for the installation.

From there follow the steps and then sort out any drivers issues and start downloading and/or installing your software... You can do all that via the wireless once you have a working copy of win7.

To administrator, as a new member this is my first post, if it is in violations of forum’s rules, please discard it.
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Pattym, if you are still looking for a solution on your vista-win7 removal matter, here I have a solution by which you can install as many OS as you want on a single PC & each and every OS will be installed exclusively and separately on its own partition, without files/informations sharing/integrating one OS with another & vice-versa installed on another partition of the same PC. So if your PC has 3 Operating Systems installed i.e. WinXP, Vista & Win7 you can run one of the OS but still can share the data stored on other partition/s. Lets say, though you have more than one OS installed on your PC but you always want to start PC with e.g. Vista, you can do that and you can still share your personal data/programs installed/stored on other partitions/drives where other Operating Systems are installed as well. In this way your other windows (OS) installed on the PC will never start until you want to do so. Even you can program your PC for a multi-boot and by which at initial boot screen all OS will be listed & you will have to click one of them to start.

Now what you need to do?

• Acronis & Paragon Ultimate Boot CD USB 2009 1.1(ISO) – Download this ISO file from internet ( there are many sites & it is free). Burn it on a CD.
• Start your PC/Laptop & press “delete or F2 or Esc” according to your Laptop’s setting to go to BIOS Setup. Change the setting of boot priority to boot from CD. & insert the CD into CD drive & press F10 to save setting and restart the PC. When restarted you will have to make enter to boot from CD & again enter to boot from CD’s Utilities (Not hard disk). When the program is opened select “Paragon Hard disk Manager 2009 professional” & enter.
• Now on the left side panel you can see that you are already on the Hard disk manager & on the main panel you can see all of your partitions/drives.
• Select one of the drives which have larger GB of free space & click right the mouse on it, then select Resize/move & enter. Now on the new window, on the drive bar take the mouse at the right end of the bar & click and drag towards left to free 30GB for win7 or 15GB for vista and then enter. (Not: I suggest you install window 7 which is a few times better then XP pro but hundred times better then Vista & it has many extra features which you will learn through the process of its use).
• At the left panel bottom you can see “Apply” probably in Green color. Now click on apply to continue making the space free. It will take a little longer time but be patient & do not be afraid at all. You will not loss any of data. During the processing it will move the data from the freed partition and will create a new partition.
• Now right click on the newly created partition and select format and select NTFS (not FAT32)& click apply at the bottom of the left panel.
• Then look the drive type - if it is primary or not. If it is not primary right click on the drive and select Primary and enter.
• Now make the drive “active” by right clicking on the drive then select modify & then select active & enter.
• Now make this drive “Unhide” if it is showing the hide status as “yes” & for this again right click the drive & then modify then select Unhide & enter.
• Now go to other partitions/drives on the screen & one by one make the partitions as “inactive”(not active) & as “Hide”(not unhide) by repeating the procedure at Serial No. 8 & 9 above.
• Now look at the left panel bottom for the “apply” button, Incase it is green then just click to apply otherwise nothing to do.
• Now before closing this program just have a look at the partition status –

Status of newly created partition should be = i) primary ii) active iii) unhide.
Status of remaining partitions should be = i) inactive ii) hide.

Now exit the program by entering on “Power off” or “reboot” & the program will close.

When restarting the PC at first go to BIOS setup (by clicking “delete or F2 or Esc –according to your PC) and take out the Paragon CD and insert your windows installation CD/DVD and install the windows. During the installation enter on “install now” & then while the list of the partitions will appear you select the newly created partition which you will recognize by the size that also both of the “disc space & free space” will be same.
After extracting of the files the windows will perform a dos command “chkdsk” – Just allow it.

When the installation is completed your disk drive will be C drive & you do not have any other drives or partitions.
When all programs are installed & everything is working normally, now you can add the remaining drives/partitions to your windows for file sharing. For this, at first shutdown the windows. Then restart the PC/Laptop and go to Bios Setup to boot from CD & start the CD utilities as per procedure at serial no. 2 above.

Now go to other partitions and make them “Unhide” one by one as per procedure at serial no.9 above but be careful that do not make “active”. (Here you will recognize your own windows drive by its size in GB which you created as per procedure at serial no.4 above. Just don’t touch this !!!).

After finishing just look at left panel bottom & if the apply button is green then just click it to apply.

Now one more final look at the status of the partitions –
Your Windows partition = i) active ii) unhide
Other partitions = i)Inactive ii)unhide

Now you can close the program by click/enter on reboot or power off & when the program is closed remove the CD for future use.

Now start the Windows as usual & you will see your remaining drives & from where you can back up anything you want & format them for future use.
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Now if you want to install another OS e.g. Vista or WinXP on another drive which you have just formatted, first of all you will have to go through Paragon CD procedure again & this time you will have to make your intended windows installing partition/drive formatted in NTFS, then make it “primary” (if already not) & make it as “Active” & “Unhide” while other partitions/drives will be as “Inactive” & “Hide” including the partition you installed windows earlier).

Now look for the apply button at the left panel & if it is green then just apply it.

Then power off or reboot & then take out the Paragon CD & install your next windows.

Be careful after clicking on “install now” when you will see the list of partitions/drives you should remember the size of your intended partition & probably it will be empty which means disk size and free space will be same. After extracting of the files the windows will perform a dos command “chkdsk” – just allow it.

After completion of the installations of windows now you will have only C drive. Now to add other drives you should shutdown the windows.

Start the PC/Laptop & go to BIOS Setup & select CD boot & by the Paragon CD utilities 1. You will have to make all drives “unhide”.
2. Since you have two drives with two separate OS, you will make “active” only one drive which one you want to use & remaining drives should be “inactive”.

Now look at the apply button at the left panel & if it is green then just apply it.

Final look at the partition status = all drives “Unhide”
Only one drive will be “Active” which windows you want to use & remaining drives are “Inactive”.

In this way you can delete any OS at any time without disturbing other OS on the same PC. Because the installation/system files each & every OS are installed within its own drive.
You can also generate multi-boot system by Paragon’s normal installable disk management program but not Boot CD. In this way each time you can select any one of the OS to start (thus you do not need to make active your OS drive you want to use through Paragon CD boot.)

Enjoy!