elminating vista partition, disk management screenshot included...

I'm trying to extend the partition of my windows 7, but that option is grayed out when I do it from a free partition manager bootdisk and also while in windows. I'm done with vista anyways, so I'd like to delete that partition, however it was there first, and I dont want to go through a bootmgr nightmare again.

I've looked through several older threads where the steps include (backup) boot with free boot cd, mark win7 partition as active, delete vista partition, try to reboot a handful of times until it repairs itself. Is this what I should do?

What files do I copy to the win7 partition manually?

Yes, there is actually an easier way. First, remove the Vista drive from the computer, and then run a startup repair once or twice. If it does not detect any installation, mark the 7 partition as active, and then run a startup repair.

Startup Repair

Partition - Mark as Active

That should write a new boot loader to the 7 partition. You can then reattach the Vista drive, and then change the hard drive boot priority in the BIOS to make sure the drive with the 7 partition on it is first.

As both OS's appear to be on the same HD, back up your files, use Free Partition Wizard bootable CD to mark Win7 partition Active, mark Vista and any other besides Win7 partition Inactive, delete Vista partition, then boot Win7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD, click through to Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots until Win7 starts.

If you want to move Win7 to the preferred lower HD address, then before running Startup Repair use PW to resize the adjacent partition to make the deleted Vista space large enough to Copy Win7 into it, or simply move data off HD temporarily to delete all partitions except Win7, then Resize Win7 to it's left as desired, creating a new data partition to its right.

Actually, the EasyBCD utility is supposed to be able to "move" the boot loader files from your Vista partition to your Win7 partition at the click of a mouse.

You can get EasyBCD from the NeoSmart Technology website. Be sure to get the latest version (2.0+).

theog said:

As Disk 0, is active, boot files may or may not be on that drive. Where the OS should have been.

What I would do is start a fresh with a clean install to Disk0.

Somehow that ended up as disk 0 after recovering all the files and rebuilding the partition... it's not really important.

karlsnooks said:

jorpe,

I suggest that BEFORE you change things around,
Use Windows Backup And Restore to make a System Image of your Win 7.

Then either using Windows Backup and Restore or simply with copy/paste backup all the data that you want to keep on that disk with Win7 on it.

You will need to backup to an external usb disk to give you the greatest flexibility.

is that the same thing as making a drive clone with acronis? I have aronis also

Acronis can create images too, but see this tutorial: Backup Complete Computer - Create an Image Backup

System Image Recovery