deleting vista. not that easy???

[theblueflash]

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]

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]

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]

This is what you want to do?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

 

[theblueflash]

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]

This is what you want to do?
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html

View attachment 45232

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

 

[theblueflash]

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]

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]

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]

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

 

[theblueflash]

ok. computer wont load windows 7. as suspected 'bootmgr is missing' on startup.

ive got vista 32 and want to upgrade to 64 bit 7. for the reason you mentioned. more memory. got much more than 4gb of ram, which is wasted in a 32bit o/s.

not sure that would work. my o/s's are not partitioned at all. they are on seperate hard drives and both completely open. i have 7 on the slave and want to wipe the master with vista and then switch master/.slave so the larger hd holds o/s program files etc and the smalller slave is a backup.

a screenshot as it stands at the moment......

 

[Dom]

Ok, i honestly don't know what do with your needs
maybe its time someone with more expertise should handle this

 

[theblueflash]

Ok, i honestly don't know what do with your needs
maybe its time someone with more expertise should handle this

ok mate. thanks for the replies though. there must be someone out there who has done this. or has enough know how to overcome the problem.

 

[myzr7]

Ok, i honestly don't know what do with your needs
maybe its time someone with more expertise should handle this

ok mate. thanks for the replies though. there must be someone out there who has done this. or has enough know how to overcome the problem.

Ok you say you have copied to an external drive. right? Then can you take your vista disk out of your pc and put it in your external drive inclosure? If so then can you replace disc 0 with disc 1 and boot from the 7 install dvd and run start up repair 3 times to make 7 bootable? After 7 becomes system active then plug your external drive in after you have booted and see if you can delete vista.

 

[theblueflash]

Ok, i honestly don't know what do with your needs
maybe its time someone with more expertise should handle this

ok mate. thanks for the replies though. there must be someone out there who has done this. or has enough know how to overcome the problem.

Ok you say you have copied to an external drive. right? Then can you take your vista disk out of your pc and put it in your external drive inclosure? If so then can you replace disc 0 with disc 1 and boot from the 7 install dvd and run start up repair 3 times to make 7 bootable? After 7 becomes system active then plug your external drive in after you have booted and see if you can delete vista.

thats just data files that are copied. and only to an external hard drive. just to make double safe i dont lose anything important while i attempt to upgrade.

 

[SausageHacker]

I only read a few replies, so I'll try not to be redundant. From what I can understand, you want to have two hard drives. The 320 GB Vista drive is for backup now. Vista has been backed up it seems and you have everything you need. Now you want the 320 GB drive cleaned? Thats my interpretation... I don't know if thats exactly what needs to happen but heres how to do that.

Boot into Windows 7, and launch disk management (diskmgmt.msc). Now find the logical disk with the files on it that you do not want. Right-click, "Format." Choose NTFS, and let it do its thing.

If that doesn't work, boot off of a GPARTED live disk and format it there.

 

[theblueflash]

this isnt possible. if i right click c: drive with vista on it there is no option to format. im guessing now the more i read on the subject that i cannot format a primary drive?

if im on the right lines can somebody please tell me how to do this. im about to take a hammer to my hard drive and just buy a new one. god i hate vista!!!!!!!!!

 

[alphanumeric]

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..........

Thats the way a dual boot works if you let windows set it up. Windows 7 detected windows Vista and setup the dual boot for you. It replaces the Vista boot loader that is on your primary drive with its boot loader and adds Vista as an option. If it put its boot loader on the secondary drive your PC would have no way of finding it because the BIOS will look for the OS on the primary hard drive with the active partition. You would always boot into Vista. If you had unplugged the Vista drive then installed Windows 7 it would have put the boot loader on the same drive it was installed to. A clean install not a dual boot. You would then have to select which drive to boot to in the BIOS. I'm not experienced enough with windows 7/vista to know how to fix it. If it was me I would just start over with the one drive I wanted 7 on installed and do a clean install. After saveing any files I wanted to keep that is.

 

[theblueflash]

thats clearer thanks. will reinstall 7 on the 2nd hard drive without the primary powered and adjust bios settings to boot prefered o/s. will then try formatting vista hard drive to erase it that way. cheers

 

[Dom]

I had a brain wave overnight

We just need to sort out the Windows.old folder.
What does it say when you try to Copy + paste to the separate hard drive?
maybe you could take ownership (http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html) of the windows.old folder, then copy paste the whole thing over to the slave drive. then you would extract the stuff you want on the same hdd, with no errors trying to do it over 2.

Dom.