New
#1
How to remove single OS from dual boot - Windows 7 and Win Server 2008
Tried tackling this one single-handedly to begin with and failed.
I have Windows 7 and Windows Server 2008 R2 installed as a dual boot, different partitions single HDD.
I want to remove the Windows 7 partition and keep the Win 2008. I do NOT want to lose anything from the Win 2008 partition.
Taken from Disk Management.
Disk 3 with 5 partitions
1st - Healthy, Primary partition 73MB. (I thought this was system reserve but its not, leftover space from a previous partition change). It's currently mounted and completely empty.
2nd - Unallocated space 500mb
3rd - Windows 7 OS (Healthy - system, active, primary partition)
4th - Windows 2008 Server OS (Healthy - boot, page file, crash dump, primary partition)
5th - Unallocated space 8mb'ish
I haven't been using Windows 7 for years and want to clean this drives partitions up because it's messy and wasting space. I just need windows server 2008 as it's been used as a server for years and that's all I need it for now.
I want to safely remove the windows 7 installation and merge that partition along with the 1st and unallocated spaces back into a single partition where windows 2008 server resides.
Now I've tried tackling this myself and failed. I stupidly made the windows server 2008 partition as active which killed my boot and took me forever to repair with zero loss fortunately. Sadly it was as simple as using diskpart in a command prompt from win 2008 boot disk to make win 7 partition active again.
So, how do I do this? The boot manager must be on the win 7 partition as removing active killed it. The windows 7 boot (during startup) is long removed, system boots directly to windows 2008.