Dual boot - remove 1st partition

SIW2 said:

Hi archmisha,

Open an elevated command prompt and type:

bcdboot z:\windows /s z:

then press enter.

close command prompt.

In Disk Management Rt click Z and select Mark as Active.

Restart.

If this moves the Active System partition to Z as desired, then you can delete the C; partition and use a 3rd party partition manager like Partition Wizard to recover the space from deleted C: into your Z partition.

The easiest way to do this, after making sure Z: is now set as active, is to boot into Partition Wizard, right click on C: and delete, then right click on Z: choose Resize/Move then just slide the left border of Z over the deleted C space to encompass it all.

There is the slight possibility you will have to run Startup Repair from the Installer disk's Repair console.

Suggest before doing anything you type Backup in the Win7 start box, then Create an Image of your HDD to save to your external so you can easily reimage the HDD if you need to start over, since moving operations can fail.

SIW2 said:

Hi archmisha,

Open an elevated command prompt and type:

bcdboot z:\windows /s z:

then press enter.

close command prompt.

In Disk Management Rt click Z and select Mark as Active.

Restart.

That won't get the space back from the C: partition.

Wating for a reply from archmisha ...

Of course it won't.

It makes it possible for him to do so.

After that, just delete C.

Any better ideas?

BTW Partition Magic is not comaptible with the NT6 partitioning rules.

gregrocker said:

SIW2 said:

Hi archmisha,

Open an elevated command prompt and type:

bcdboot z:\windows /s z:

then press enter.

close command prompt.

In Disk Management Rt click Z and select Mark as Active.

Restart.

If this moves the Active System partition to Z as desired, then you can delete the C; partition and use a 3rd party partition manager like Partition Wizard to recover the space from deleted C: into your Z partition.

The easiest way to do this, after making sure Z: is now set as active, is to boot into Partition Wizard, right click on C: and delete, then right click on Z: choose Resize/Move then just slide the left border of Z over the deleted C space to encompass it all.

There is the slight possibility you will have to run Startup Repair from the Installer disk's Repair console.

Suggest before doing anything you type Backup in the Win7 start box, then Create an Image of your HDD to save to your external so you can easily reimage the HDD if you need to start over, since moving operations can fail.

Yup, I use to use Partition Magic, but it's about 50-50 taking a chance. I'm thinking if OP has enough room on the external drive to use Acronis True Image Copy to copy the Z: to the external, boot from the external, full format the C:/Z: and Image copy from the external to the newly formatted C:

He could do that - use an image tool make an image - get a bootable partition tool - boot it - delete the partitions - restore the image - then run startup repair repeatedly.

I would rather use one simple command - then just delete C in Disk Management.

If he later wants to have the installation in the lower address spaces - then just use the copy function on a free partition manager - Paragon is probably best IMO - it updates bcd for you. Or - if you like the idea of image /restore - Macrium free is unbeatable for efficiency.

Alternatively - Greg already suggested Partition Wizard - doesn't update bcd afaik.

Yes there is enough space on drive Z.
First partition got windows 7 ultimate rtm , upgraded from rc1
Second partition is a clean install of windows 7 ultimate rtm.

SIW2 said:

He could do that - use an image tool make an image - get a bootable partition tool - boot it - delete the partitions - restore the image - then run startup repair repeatedly.

I would rather use one simple command - then just delete C in Disk Management.

If he later wants to have the installation in the lower address spaces - then just use the copy function on a free partition manager - Paragon is probably best IMO - it updates bcd for you. Or - if you like the idea of image /restore - Macrium free is unbeatable for efficiency.

Alternatively - Greg already suggested Partition Wizard - doesn't update bcd afaik.

If he marks Win7 partition active and moves it into that deleted XP space, then won' t Win7 startup repair rewrite the bootloader?

SIW2 said:

Hi archmisha,

Open an elevated command prompt and type:

bcdboot z:\windows /s z:

then press enter.

close command prompt.

In Disk Management Rt click Z and select Mark as Active.

Restart.

Now i get message: "NTLDR is missing" when i reboot....
What do I do?