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#31
Maybe, I'm not sure, but I think he cannot format the C: drive because that is the drive his current version of Windows is running from. You know, you cannot format the C: drive while you're booted into Windows and you cannot install to a partition that doesn't have enough free space.
What he can do is follow a procedure similar to the following, but instead of using a USB flash drive, just use your D: partition and make it active using disk management or diskpart.
Install Windows Vista (or 7) from Bootable USB Flash Memory Drive
EDIT: It does work nicely, even when using internal hard disks as the install media. I just tried it, and it's fast. Like I say, I only had to adopt the method above to use my internal hard disk rather than a USB one. (Be careful or you could end up doing bad things to your current partition structure...ultimately creating a big headache for yourself, especially if it causes you to lose important data!)
To recap: Basically all you really need to do is set your D: partition as active and then go into your BIOS and make the hard disk including the D: partition as the first boot device (it probably already is). If you need any more help, just let me know.
WARNING: Techie Explanation:
The reason this works is because copying the installation files from the Win7 DVD to hard disk also copies the boot manager and boot code that was included on the install media. However it will NOT do anything to the hard disk's Master Boot Record, so the boot code in the MBR must already be in place [as it should be so long as the disk was already partitioned with Windows Vista or higher]). This is a nice feature and it didn't used to work pre-Vista days. I hope this was not too much information
Last edited by sup3rsprt; 23 Aug 2009 at 02:46.
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Do not mark a partition as active if it does not contain the loader for an operating system. Doing so will cause your computer to stop working.