Removing Vista drive from a dual boot with Windows 7 on seperate drive

silps · 30 Jun 2011

Hi, I installed Windows 7 on a second hard drive (WD 500GB c) to create a dual boot with Vista (OS d). This has been working great and I have fully transferred over to Windows 7.

Now I want to remove the Vista drive (OS d) and format it to use for data only or in future purchase a larger capacity hd for data. I think my MBR is on the Vista drive so how can I do this safely and easily?

I have attached a screenshot from disc manager.

Arc · 30 Jun 2011

Unplug Disk 0 , and then run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times . It will add the Windows 7 boot files in the WD 500 GB disk 1.

(But if you want to make the boot files in a separate partition (which is a usual situation with a clean install), you may see System Reserved : Create Using Disk Management .)

Now you are able to Boot up windows 7 directly .... so you may easily format the Vista disk, if you want, either using the option three of the tutorial Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD , or Disk - Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command or SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation .

Hope it helps .

EDIT : If you dont want to format the vista drive, you will need to delete the windows 7 boot entry from it . Download and install EasyBCD , Click on the "Edit Boot Menu" button and Click on delete , and save .

Removing Vista drive from a dual boot with Windows 7 on seperate drive-capture.jpg

Now , you can use the either OS using the boot menu key of your computer, selecting which disk is to boo up during start up the computer.

theog · 30 Jun 2011

You must make the Windows 7 HD disk0 & Vista HD disk1, as below.

Removing Vista drive from a dual boot with Windows 7 on seperate drive-move-boot-001.png

Do Startup Repair with only the Windiws 7 HD plugged in.

Removing Vista drive from a dual boot with Windows 7 on seperate drive-move-boot-002.png

Removing Vista drive from a dual boot with Windows 7 on seperate drive-move-boot-003.png

gregrocker · 30 Jun 2011

Mark Win7 partition Active in Disk Management or using Diskpart from DVD: Partition - Mark as Active (Method Two)

Unplug Vista HD and swap its cable to Win7 HD, making sure Win7 HD is set first to boot in BIOS setup.

Boot the WIn7 DVD or Repair CD, accept any offered repair. If Win7 doesn't start boot back into repair to run Startup REpair up to 3 separate times with reboots until Win7 starts.

You can now plug Vista HD back into Disk1 slot to boot it using one-time BIOS Boot Menu key, wipe HD or delete partitions with Diskpart:
Clean and Clean All with Diskpart Command
DiskPart Command-Line Options