installed 7 on new ssd and want to format old primary drive with vista

Hi

I was hoping someone could please help me with a formatting issue. I have recently installed Windows 7 on a new ssd and want to format the old hdd primary drive that has vista on it and the system will not let me. Just wondering if the hdd is still being used somehow during boot up and this is why 7 will not format it?

Do you Physically disconnect the old HD drive, before installing to the SSD?
If no, the boot files are on the the old HD.

Quite right. But still, please send a screen shot of your hard disk and SSD. If there is a separate System Reserved Partition on the old disk then it may perhaps be possible to format the Vista OS containing drive.

theog said:

Do you Physically disconnect the old HD drive, before installing to the SSD?
If no, the boot files are on the the old HD.

If the SSD will boot on its own without the HD, and contains the System Active Boot flags on it as shown in Disk Management, then the best way is to use Diskpart Clean Command from the SSD to wipe the HD, repartition it in Disk Management. Partition or Volume - Create New

Thanks for your replies. In the end had to disconnect the hd and reinstall windows to the ssd

So is it now AWTEW (All's well that ends well) and this thread is solved.

Gradam said:

Thanks for your replies. In the end had to disconnect the hd and reinstall windows to the ssd

You did not. Had you asked back we could have helped you easily move the System boot files to the Win7 partition on SSD, by marking it Active and running Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times with the HD disconnected.