Current dual boot-deleting Vista

[gregrocker]

Interesting, I am curious what went on with your partitioning.

How did you get 2 logical drives and free space ?

There was only 1 logical drive before.

View attachment 33094

How does it look now going left to right?

It looks a bit different from the partition wizard but when i deleted Vista which was D i copied WIN7 into the unallocated space and was still left with 39gbs of space which i thought was weird but meh

As for the logical one i changed some after all the rest failed in the vain hope it would work,i now have 2 primary and 1 logical.

Unallocated (recover partition 11.72 GB) -/- Windows 7 64bit (125.34gb)-/- Unallocated (Ex System partiton, 39.41 GB ?) -/- Data (163.95GB) -/- Windows 7 64bit (125.34GB)

The first windows 7 partiton is Active.

All the rest are status "none".

The first Win7 and Data partition are primary.

The rest are logical.

Sorry for the typo. SIW2 tagteam a lot.

I think the problem may possibly be the deleted Recovery (first) partition was not first merged with Vista (second) deleted space before Win7 was copied onto it.

 

[Minotar]

Boot the macrium cd and follow the screen - couldn't be easier - make sure you select Primary and Active - restore mbr as well - will be as before:

Macrium Reflect - Blogs and News

Ah..i didnt mount the file on a cd,i merely stored it in the data partition.

And im not giving up,i was going to try the same process again and make sure i done everything to the letter,sorry if it sounded like that

 

[Minotar]

Sorry for the typo. SIW2 tagteam a lot.

I think the prob may possibly be the deleted Recovery (first) partition was not first merged with Vista (second) deleted space before Win7 was copied onto it. So it is not on the boot sector? (tho marked active)

That is exactly what i done,i deleted vista,copied 7 into said space,and then deleted the recovery partition.

 

[gregrocker]

When you deleted the Recovery Partition, I think it wiped out the boot sector which is on the first part of the disk. It needed to have that unallocated space added to the deleted Vista space before copying Win7 into it, I believe. This is reparable.

At worst you'd have to reinstall Win7 to that combined first partition after booting from installer, merging that space, then creating a new partition and formatting it.

Your goal is to have Win7 in first partition and your data in a second, right?

I hope everyone reading this sees what is involved in trying to delete Vista from first partition when you (quickly) discover you don't want it any more. THis has happened three times on this board today. It is tricky enough to do myself but guiding someone running between computers is treacherous.

The way it has worked in my own cases is to delete Vista using disk management software like Paragon, copy Win7 into the space and mark active, run Startup Repair 3 times.

 

[Minotar]

When you deleted the Recovery Partition, it wiped out the boot sector. It needed to have that unallocated space added to the deleted Vista space before copying Win7 into it, I believe. This is reparable.

At worst you'd have to reinstall Win7 to that drive after booting from installer, merging that space, then creating a new partition and formatting it.

Your goal is to have Win7 in first partition and your data in a second, right?

Thats the plan yes.

So i would have to merge the unallocated space with both win7 partitions,then format and do a clean install of windows 7?

 

[Minotar]

I hope everyone reading this sees what is involved in trying to delete Vista from first partition when you (quickly) see you don't want it any more. THis has happened three times on this board today. It is tricky enough to do myself but guiding someone running between computers is treacherous.

I second that,it is far more complicated than i first thought,i thought it would be similar to dual booting two OS's. Its not.


And seriously,thanks to both of you,id would have been lost a long time ago otherwise.

 

[SIW2]

LOL.

I believe I said make original 7 partition Primary before copying it.

I would delete the NEW 7 partition - make the original 7 Primary DON'T FORGET TO CLICK APPLY - copy it into the new ( now larger ) Unallocated space - ( on the left in PW window).

Should be fine - make sure the new one shows as primary and active - then do the 3 times startup repair thing.

 

[gregrocker]

When you deleted the Recovery Partition, it wiped out the boot sector. It needed to have that unallocated space added to the deleted Vista space before copying Win7 into it, I believe. This is reparable.

At worst you'd have to reinstall Win7 to that drive after booting from installer, merging that space, then creating a new partition and formatting it.

Your goal is to have Win7 in first partition and your data in a second, right?

Thats the plan yes.

So i would have to merge the unallocated space with both win7 partitions,then format and do a clean install of windows 7?

This may not be necessary with SIW2's troubleshooting steps above in #47.

And NO you would not merge the space between the original WIn7 and the copied win7. If you go on to reinstall, you would boot into installer, choose CUstom>advanced tools and delete everything in the space to the left of the data partition, then create and format a partition there to install Win7 (will be C, too) . You should then delete the old WIndows 7 partition on the far right which you copied from because it isn't needed. Then install to first partition.

 

[SIW2]

Don't delete the original 7.

See my post 47.

There's plenty of options - try post 47 first as it will be quicker.

 

[Minotar]

Don't delete the original 7.

See my post 47.

There's plenty of options - try post 47 first as it will be quicker.

Im just waiting on the copy now,should only be another few minutes

 

[Minotar]

No joy again.

When i go into repair pc from the install disc i get the "do you want to repair and restart..."

I click no and select OS
Theres 2 Win7


It says this version of windows system recovery is not compatiable with this version of windows on both.

And it wont repair if i click yes to the initial repair and restart question

 

[gregrocker]

Will it let you run Startup REpair on either listing? Because it rarely works on the first try if offered to you and needs to be re-run by clicking Startup Repair

You also need to determine which Win7 listing in the Repair Console is the one you copied into the first partition space. Then click on it and run Startup Repair 3 times.

 

[Minotar]

Because it rarely works on the first try if offered to you and needs to be re-run by clicking Startup Repair

Ive forced it to the start-up repair by click load drivers>cancel>start up repair .
Done it a good number of times with no luck.

By the way,after the name of the OS it has recovery in brackets.

 

[Minotar]

You need to determine which Win7 listing in the Repair Console is the one you copied into the first partition space. Then click on it and run Startup Repair 3 times.

Good job on copy - it is in there and now just needs to have boot repaired.

SIW2 could both Win7's being listed cause a conflict?

I know which one it is becasue the copy has more space

The problem im encountering is it wont boot repair,and if i force it as i outlined above it try's to repair an "Unknown" drive

 

[gregrocker]

It says this version of windows system recovery is not compatiable with this version of windows on both.

"This error may occur if you use the 32-bit version of the Windows installation disc to run the Complete PC Restore program on a computer that is running the 64-bit version of Windows . By default, the 64-bit operating system is selected in the list of installed operating systems.
To work around this behavior, on the Select operating system page, select the blank space in the list under the operating system, and then click Next".

-MS via Keznews

 

[Minotar]

I got startup repair to work,(before i seen your above post by using the force method)it said repaired,"restart now"
Rebooted and it said something like there was no local disk,i ran the install disc again and it didnt pick it up any os so im running PW again to see if i can find it

 

[Minotar]

Bah!!

It renamed it to... nothing,the drive now has no name and to add to that its also full

Deleted it and redo'ing it again..

 

[gregrocker]

Unless SIW2 has a fix (he always does), this is the point I would boot into the Installer, select CUstom>Advanced Tools then Delete all of the partitions on either side of the Data partition (hope you backed that up). Then create a new partition to the left of the Data storage partition, format it and install.

When you get it set up to your satisfaction, use Win7's Backup Imaging to save an image externally so that you will never again have to do another reinstall.

This is by no means a defeat when you consider all of the hours you could spend troubleshooting vs. a 20 minute reinstall. And others learned from this thread which is already showing up on Google searches.

 

[Minotar]

Unless SIW2 has a fix (he always does), this is the point I would boot into the Installer, select CUstom>Advanced Tools then Delete all of the partitions on either side of the Data partition (hope you backed that up). Then create a new partition to the left of the Data storage partition, format it and install.

When you get it set up to your satisfaction, use Win7's Backup Imaging to save an image externally so that you will never again have to do another reinstall.

If thid does not work this time round that is what i will do,at this point its 3:30 am and ive gone through about 50 cigarettes and 30mugs off coffe.

So,using the custom install i delete both win7 partitions but keep the data one,and then use the space left by the two deleted partitions to re-install Win7?

 

[SIW2]

You could do that. The problem arose copying an extended partition. You had quite a few attempts at changing the various partition types yourself.

The partition table is suspect. Not sure the installer will read it correctly.

Boot to the system recovery options command promt and Type:

Diskpart

lis disk

( hopefully )

sel disk 0

detail disk

( let us know what it says)

exi

( to exit diskpart)