Delete Vista from 2nd drive (has system partition)

I had Vista on "disk 0", my D drive. Installed Win7 on "disk 1", my C drive. I now want to reformat the D drive and rid myself forever of Vista. It also has mechanical issues I am going to try to fix...

I can't reformat it, apparently because D holds my system partition (see attached screenshot).

How can I move my system partition to the other drive? Or is there another solution?

I've seen similar questions on the SevenForums, but none are exactly the same so I don't want to assume my solution is the same...

Thanks!

jkshop said:

I had Vista on "disk 0", my D drive. Installed Win7 on "disk 1", my C drive. I now want to reformat the D drive and rid myself forever of Vista. It also has mechanical issues I am going to try to fix...

I can't reformat it, apparently because D holds my system partition (see attached screenshot).

How can I move my system partition to the other drive? Or is there another solution?

I've seen similar questions on the SevenForums, but none are exactly the same so I don't want to assume my solution is the same...

Thanks!

I assume you were dual booting and vista was on the machine when win 7 was installed. The file from win 7 were put into a hidden folder in vista called boot.

Am I correct in that assumption?


Ken

If this is your setup.

SATA1=Disk0=Vista
SATA2=Disk1=Win 7

Remove Disk0=Vista.

Replace with Win 7 HD.

SATA1=Disk0=Win 7

Do a startup repair, You may need to do startup repair 3 to 4 times.

Startup Repair

Replace your Vista HD, when Win 7 is booting OK.

Setup will be.

SATA1=Disk0=Win 7
SATA2=Disk1=Old Vista HD.

The cleanest solution would be to install Win7 on disk1 with disk0 disconnected. Then (after reattaching disk0) the Vista partition will only appear as a data partition in Win7 which you can reformat, delete or whatever.

Had similar issues with XP. This worked for me so should also work with Vista.

Xp was installed first, then Windows 7 added as dual boot. Now no need to keep XP. However boot files are on XP partition so you cannot just delete/format the XP partition.

So get EasyBCD 2.0 latest, you need to register but it's free.


Check Windows Disk Management for the "system" flag.
If it's not XP, you can go ahead and format it.
If it is XP, use EasyBCD 2.0 latest build / Diagnostics Center/ change boot drive
Point it at your Windows 7 drive.
Reboot (remember to change BIOS boot sequence if they're on different HDDs)
delete the XP entry from the BCD using EasyBCD
format XP

I know it works because I have just done it.

Since the Win 7 partition is already active, in Win 7 open an adminstrative command prompt and type the following and enter after:
bcdboot C:\Windows /s C:

Wait for confirmation and close window. This will put the boot files on the Win 7 partition if they are not already there.

Reboot and change the drive order in the bios to put the Win 7 drive first and it will boot back to the Win 7 drive.

The Drive 0 or 1 is controlled by the SATA connectors, as has been mentioned, so if you change those, double check the drive order in the bios.

Saltgrass,

I thought there was not to be a space between /S and the system drive

Am I wrong?

Unplug DISK0 and plug its cable into DISK1, making sure DISK1 is set as first HD to boot in BIOS setup.

Boot the WIn7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD, click through to Recov Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots to write the MBR to Win7, which is already marked Active.

Then plug old Vista HD into DISK1 cable, delete and format in Disk Mgmt or using Partition Wizard.

To avoid having to tweak hardware, I used the free EasyBCD app (pretty slick) to copy system partition settings. Worked like a charm, my prodigal Vista drive has returned and been wiped clean!!! Thanks all for the responses, I much appreciate it.
So far, Win7 works like Vista should have.

Another vote for EasyBCD (it must be V2 though) I had exactly the same problem while trying to rid my netbook of XP. EasyBCD worked like a charm and I was able to recover my old XP partition to use as data space......but with a small niggle - I now have the old XP bootloader (scrolling green bar) until Win7 kicks in properly. The boot time feels slower too.

Strange ..... I suspect it has something to do with my previous file-fiddling but has anyone got any ideas how to get back to Win7 loader?