A question about removing Windows 7 from HDD

Make sure you get everything off the OS partition first using the DVD/CD method I gave you.

I'd also try to bring the HD back online in Disk Mgmt or using Diskpart first as it may be all it needs, unless you got further information that there is a conflict of some sort which needs resolving first.

I deleted the system partition and tried rebooting into the SSD, but it still shows the HDD as being offline. Which command do I use in diskpart to try and bring the HDD online? Oh, no problem with getting the data off the storage partition as I have an older PC with Windows XP and the HDD shows up as being online on that machine.

There is an "online" command available.

Enter /help in diskpart to see the full list of commands.

I have a thought. Since Windows XP on my old PC doesn't have a conflict with the HDD, could I try rebuilding the MBR on the drive with the XP bootloader? Maybe then there wouldn't be a conflict with Windows 7 and it wouldn't destroy any data on the storage drive.

Does marking the drive as "online" with diskpart fail?

I've never used that command, but did you select the disk before using the command?

I'm also wondering about the "rescan" command in diskpart.

Yes, I was able to select the disk in diskpart, but it wouldn't accept any of the commands, because it was offline. Maybe I wasn't doing it right. Anyway, I had a WinPE disk with Easesus Todo Workstation and was able to use the recover to dissimilar hardware feature to restore an old Win XP image to the partition that had Win 7 installed on it previously. I then hooked it back up to my new PC and it now comes online, with both partitions intact. Not sure how it worked, but am happy with the result. Thanks you guys for your input. As always it is appreciated!

Out of curiosity, I re-installed a different copy of Windows 7 on the same HDD I previously had a signature conflict with. This time however, when I booted my PC from the SSD, the HDD with the different copy of Windows 7 came online as normal. So my conclusion is that for some reason, my PC won't bring two different drives online, if they contain the same copy of Windows 7.