Installation Mix-up

Here is my situation: I have been using the Windows 7 Ultimate beta for several months now and I have had no problems whatsoever. 10 days ago, my Action Center notified me that I only had 14 days until my version of Windows expired. A day later, I order a copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. I received it several days later and popped it in to install it. Before I installed it, however, I backed up my system onto my 500gb external hard drive.

My next step was installing my copy of Windows 7 Home Premium. I did so and everything went according to plan. I discovered no hardships until I restarted my PC and I get to the boot menu. On the boot menu, there were 2 options that both said "Windows 7" on them. I scrolled to first one on the list, and it contained my brand new, untouched version of Windows 7 Home Premium. I tried to restore my previous information that I had saved on to my external hard drive, but it did not work. I restarted the computer again and I scrolled down to the second "Windows 7" on the boot menu. When it opened up, it was my normal desktop and all the information that I had on the Windows 7 Ultimate beta before I installed the Home Premium Copy that I purchased.

My confusion is that the Windows 7 Ultimate beta should have expired by now. Its almost like I have 2 users on one operating systems, but with 2 different operating systems on my boot menu.

Is this normal? Can it be fixed? Is my internal hard drive more filled up that it shows?
Any information on this would be extremely relieving. This has been like a bug in my ear for a week now.
Thank you.

It can be fixed, perhaps attaching a snipping tool picture of your disk management window would help.

It sounds like you installed the RTM on a separate partition from the RC. It may take some minor changes, but should not be a problem.

When you say back up, do you mean an image, or a file backup?

If you didnt' create the new partition where Win7 Premium landed, then you probably overwrote the Recovery or another data partition. But as long as you have your files secured on the external, you'll be ok.

As requested, post back a screenshot of your full Disk management drive map, using Snipping Tool in Start Menu, attaching file using paper clip in Reply Box.

We will give you the steps to remove the old install and recover its space and critical boot files into new Win7 Home Premium.

I hope that helps

Well, the good news is the boot files are in the System Reserved Partition, so if the RC does expire, you can still boot to the normal install.

Is the RC in the 3rd (97.66 G) partition? The Win 7 Home install in the 4th (195 G) partition?

You have "Movies" in the 2nd partition (97.56 G)... is that what you expected?

I don't really see a problem. You can remove the Win 7 beta partition whenever you want and we can resize the partitions when you are ready. Just make sure you know which partition is which before you delete one. For instance the screen shot shows you are booted into the 4th partition (C: ). If you are currently running your new install, then that is it.

Don't be concerned, everything is normal and fixable.

Since you don't say which is Home Premium, I'm assuming it is C: in screenshot.

If so, copy your files over from RC and when you are ready to get rid of it you can delete it in Disk management, format a new partition there.

If you want to include RC's deleted space in either adjoining partition, boot free Partition Wizard CD, right click on that partition, select Resize and slide border over to include deleted RC space, OK.

Apply the steps, if necessary boot into Win7 DVD Repair console to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times to repair Win7 MBR, although this is not likely since you have the 100mb System Reserved partition.

Back up your files if you Resize partition as these operations can fail in rare cases.