Can I move Win7 from recovery(C:) to OS(D:)?

I installed Win7 on my recovery drive, which now is low on memory. Can I move it without re-installing?

You can clone it to a new hard drive on the PC

You can image it to a partition on the existing hard drive and then restore that image to the same or another drive.

Cloning is copying without using an image.

Both work pretty well, neither perfectly in all cases. If it succeeds, you would not have to reinstall programs.

Acronis, Macrium Reflect, and Paragon are the applications of choice.

After I copy it to the OS drive can I delete it off recovery?

After you copy it to the OS, I would disconnect the recovery drive and make sure the OS drive boots and functions properly by itself.

Once you have decided that the OS drive is in good shape as a single drive, then you could reconnect the recovery drive and have your way with it.

But be careful and take precautions--imaging and cloning can fail.

If you will post back a screenshot of your full DIsk Management map, we can tell you the exact steps to achieving what you want.

Use Snipping Tool in Start Menu, attach file using paper clip in reply box.

How can you tell which files are ok to delete from when I used Vista? I have a few that were last modified in 2008 and 2009.

Looks like this was an upgrade install, not a clean install?

Were the dell and sources folders there before you installed Windows 7?

Why worry about deleting anything if you are going to move or copy this partition?

I am guessing all of your personal data is somewhere in the C Users directory? Wherever it is, it will copy over when you image or clone.

Post the Disk Management pic as Greg said.

It isn't worth salvaging that Recov partition which you installed upon. You can try to make Vista Recovery Disks to see if it works, but unlikely.

I thought it was going to be a clean install because I didn't click upgrade.
The dell and sources where already there.
I have a back up of my original vista stuff on an external hard drive.
I tried doing the partition but the OS was locked and wouldn't let me move it there.

Back up your files, boot from the Win7 DVD, select CUstom Install, then use Drive Options to delete all partitions, create new one(s) as you wish, format and install Win7 to first partition.

If you have an Upgrade version it will scan DVD to see Vista and allow key.



https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1649-clean-install-windows-7-a.html