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Numerous (self-imposed) problems with Win7 install
Hello,
I just registered to get some help with installing Windows 7Pro 64-bit. I've tried several things and I think I severely messed up my computer. I'll try to remember as much as I can but feel free to ask for clarifications.
The situation:
I have a relatively new ( < 2months) Lenovo t400 laptop that had vista home basic on it. the laptop came with 3 partitions: the C: drive, a partition with lenovo software on it and a third one with Visa and some other software on it.
I bought the student download from digital river 2 days ago converted the file to an .iso using these instructions Make bootable iso from student d/l
Prior to installing Win7, I created a backup of the vista drive as they suggested and also created rescue and recovery disks. At this time I should have "recovered the drive space" of the vista drive but didn't.
I now put the .iso bootable disk in, and started a custom install. When I got the the bit about the partitions, I decided to delete the vista partition thinking it would merge with the C: drive This didn't happen and I ended up with some unallocated space. I completed the Win7 installation and went looking on the net for ways to merge the unallocated space into the C: drive. I came across disk management and like an idiot converted the C: drive and the lenovo partition to dynamic disks. Trying to convert them back, I followed the instructions here about deleting the volumes and so I wiped the lenovo partition clean too but because the C: drive is a bootable drive, I can't change it back from dynamic. I've now merged the C: drive with what used to be the lenovo partition and am now stuck with one unallocated partition and the C: drive which is still dynamic. I'd now like to merge the unallocated partition (which is on the left) with the C: drive and then convert the single partition back to a basic disk? Is that possible or am I stuck with the dynamic disks? Any help would be appreciated.
p.s. - When I try to try to merge the unallocated space and C: drive together using the elevated command prompt in these: Partition or Volume - Extend
instructions, I get an error after the "extend" command saying: Virtual Disk Service error: The volume requires contiguous disk extents"
p.p.s - I have absolutely no data on the computer that I value. Because the laptop, is so new whenever I worked on it with Vista, I always saved my work to USB, and the only programs I had installed were freeware (Avast! Anti-virus, Firefox, Chrome, VLC etc.) So re-doing the whole install won't cost me anything is terms of backing-up
p.p.p.s - I've re-done the Win7 install several times now (which is why I think I've really screwed up) because I thought you could format the partitions there but I wasn't able to. The last time I tried to install, it wouldn't accept the product key, so I finally left it blank.
Sorry about the length but I wanted to get everything as clear as possible.
Thanks once again
Patrick