deleting vista. not that easy???

theblueflash · 02 Jan 2010

hi all. im having some trouble with my current setup and getting conflicting answers from friends and professionals as to the remedy.

im running vista 32bit on my master C: drive. i want to upgrade to win 7 64bit. as its not possible to upgrade 32 to 64 ive installed 7 onto my 2nd hd. this will eventually be my master drive as the current is only a 320gb and will be used as backup.

ive saved all important files etc onto an external hd and have attempted an easy transfer, saving the recommended save onto the same drive as windows 7.

this is where the problems begin. firstly i cannot locate the oldwindows files. the folder appears on the drive but there is nothing in it to extract. it appear on the c: drive as well with the files but they will not extract either.

the 2nd problem is removing vista. ive spent near 2 days solid browsing the net and asking for advice with no easy answer. as windows 7 has been clean installed onto a seperate drive can i simply re format the c: drive with the old o/s on it. disk management wont let me and with all the other options like booting from vista dvd and re partitioning and copying boot files i really am stuck.

surely if 7 runs as a dual boot i dont need any program or boot files from vista so i can remove the lot and be done with it???

any help will be much apreciated. im very tempted to take my pc to a shop and have it done... at a price as im that sick of it now. or its out with the axe!

thanks

Dom · 02 Jan 2010

It won't let you format C:\ because that is the master partition, where the dump files and the partition the system boots up from. Reinstall 7 over Vista (clean install (i have done 32-bit to 64-bit Windows 7 on this laptop).

alphanumeric · 02 Jan 2010

If you are dual booting and the Vista drive is your current boot drive the windows 7 boot loader will be on that drive. If that is the case when you format the vista drive you will wipe out the windows 7 boot loader and you won't be able to boot to windows 7 anymore. If you want to test it just unplug your vista drive and see if you can get into windows 7. When I say dual boot I'm referring to the standard way it's done where you get a menu to select which OS you want when you boot your PC. You may be able to boot from your windows 7 DVD and do a repair to make it bootable. I've done it with XP but not 7.

myzr7 · 02 Jan 2010

This is what you want to do?
Clean Install Windows 7

deleting vista. not that easy???-clean-install.jpg

theblueflash · 02 Jan 2010

domii123 said:

It won't let you format C:\ because that is the master partition, where the dump files and the partition the system boots up from. Reinstall 7 over Vista (clean install (i have done 32-bit to 64-bit Windows 7 on this laptop).

i did think that but dont want seven on the smaller hard drive. which is why i didnt partition and clean installed it on the slave. but interesting that yours has worked despite me hearing from everyone its not possible.

theblueflash · 02 Jan 2010

myzr7 said:

This is what you want to do?
Clean Install Windows 7

yea. followed that guide for the install. v.helpful. just not sure how to do the part underlined....getting rid of vista.

theblueflash · 02 Jan 2010

alphanumeric said:

If you are dual booting and the Vista drive is your current boot drive the windows 7 boot loader will be on that drive. If that is the case when you format the vista drive you will wipe out the windows 7 boot loader and you won't be able to boot to windows 7 anymore. If you want to test it just unplug your vista drive and see if you can get into windows 7. When I say dual boot I'm referring to the standard way it's done where you get a menu to select which OS you want when you boot your PC. You may be able to boot from your windows 7 DVD and do a repair to make it bootable. I've done it with XP but not 7.

yea i get the option on startup of 7 or vista o/s. why would win 7 install boot loader on the master drive when i designate the slave for the installation?? thats just crazy. surely if i had a barebones computer with no o/s installed and stuck the disc in it would be fine??

i can try unplugging the master drive and seeing if 7 will boot. will try it now. check the horizon for fireworks..........

Dom · 02 Jan 2010

theblueflash said:

domii123 said:

It won't let you format C:\ because that is the master partition, where the dump files and the partition the system boots up from. Reinstall 7 over Vista (clean install (i have done 32-bit to 64-bit Windows 7 on this laptop).

i did think that but dont want seven on the smaller hard drive. which is why i didnt partition and clean installed it on the slave. but interesting that yours has worked despite me hearing from everyone its not possible.

What worked, 32-bit to 64-bit or Custom install?
I had bought a rip-off laptop that supports 64-bit os but it came with a 32-bit os, and i also had 4gb of RAM of which all of it couldn't be utilised. My dad got me an upgrade disk for Ultimate, when i had homebasic on vista, but he didn't know that i couldn't upgrade install. luckily, he had a 64-bit version, which was what i wanted

. i just did a clean install over vista, copied the stuff that would go into libraries from windows.old then deleted the folder. Job done.

With your problem, i think that you can from vista download easeus partition manager, shrink the partition with 7 on it, then expand the vista os. then do a clean install over vista.

myzr7 · 02 Jan 2010

Step number 7 shows you how to go to advanced drive options, then step 8 shows you a picture of what you see when you get to drive options. click on delete it will do that then click format it will do that then click new it will do that. Then continue to install and vista will be gone.Make shure you have the vista partition highlighted when you click on delete and when you click on format. easy to wipe out the wrong thing if you are not paying attention to details. Good luck to you!

Dom · 02 Jan 2010

bigmck said:

theblueflash said:

hi all. im having some trouble with my current setup and getting conflicting answers from friends and professionals as to the remedy.

im running vista 32bit on my master C: drive. i want to upgrade to win 7 64bit. as its not possible to upgrade 32 to 64 ive installed 7 onto my 2nd hd. this will eventually be my master drive as the current is only a 320gb and will be used as backup.

ive saved all important files etc onto an external hd and have attempted an easy transfer, saving the recommended save onto the same drive as windows 7.

this is where the problems begin. firstly i cannot locate the oldwindows files. the folder appears on the drive but there is nothing in it to extract. it appear on the c: drive as well with the files but they will not extract either.

the 2nd problem is removing vista. ive spent near 2 days solid browsing the net and asking for advice with no easy answer. as windows 7 has been clean installed onto a seperate drive can i simply re format the c: drive with the old o/s on it. disk management wont let me and with all the other options like booting from vista dvd and re partitioning and copying boot files i really am stuck.

surely if 7 runs as a dual boot i dont need any program or boot files from vista so i can remove the lot and be done with it???

any help will be much apreciated. im very tempted to take my pc to a shop and have it done... at a price as im that sick of it now. or its out with the axe!

thanks

This is an easy solution, but may not be what you want to do. Format your D drive with Win 7, then format your C drive with Vista. Reinstall Win 7 on D drive (the large one) and that should take care of your problem. All files would be on D including boot files.

Lol, basically what i said