Deleting old windows 7 .

[tejasvi]

hello,
i want to know how do i delete old windows 7 from my C drive while i am being in my new windows 7 in E drive.

here are the steps i followed and nothing came out of them.

- i simply deleted old windows in C drive , which still didnt freed C drive of the space
- i then used disk cleanup and cleaned up system files but still it the drive was as it is
- i reinstalled new windows 7 in C drive , computer made a folder of old windows

so in total i have 3 windows installed on my system.
Now i want to simply delete this C drive and reformat it, but my pc says it is primary drive so i cant format it, but my main windows is in E drive.

i have no data in C drive. so is there any way to reclaim it
i

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Post a screen shot of what you see in Windows Disk Management.

 

[tejasvi]

posted screen shots

 

[event3horizon]

Is "E" drive another hard drive or another partition on the same hard drive?

Remember that windows 7 creates it's own small boot partition and if you wipe that out, Windows 7 won't boot and you'll need to run startup repair with the DVD.

This boot partition may not be on the E drive but still on the C drive that references to the E drive.

I agree we need to see disk management and how it looks.

You can always boot with the Win 7 DVD and wipe it out from there. But as I said, careful not to wipe out that boot partition.

 

[tejasvi]

Is "E" drive another hard drive or another partition on the same hard drive?

I dont know that.

I agree we need to see disk management and how it looks.

i have posted

 

[event3horizon]

Is "E" drive another hard drive or another partition on the same hard drive?

I dont know that.

I agree we need to see disk management and how it looks.

i have posted

Nevermind, this is all on one physical hard drive you are speaking about.

It looks to me that you are still booting to Windows 7 through the C: partition. You cannot expect to wipe C: partition out with you still booting from it.

It looks as if your E partition contains the bootstrap files that references to the C: partition where it looks for win7 installation.

 

[event3horizon]

What I am confused is you are missing the "system reserved" 100 megabyte partition that windows 7 makes where it stores the bootstrap files. Weird??

 

[seavixen32]

Your best bet is to start from scratch, which means a clean install of Windows.

During a clean install you can delete all the old partitions then create two new ones. System Reserved will be created by Windows for the boot files with a new partition created for the operating system.

This excellent tutorial shows you how.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219487-clean-reinstall-factory-oem-windows-7-a.html#post1839164

 

[tejasvi]

oh no that is very lengthy process

 

[event3horizon]

I agree with vixen it seems like you've made a mess there. :shock:

What is on the D: and F: ??

 

[seavixen32]

Well, it's your choice, but your computer is not a lot of good to you in its present state.

Try this method for a clean install because at some stage you're going to have to bite the bullet and do it.

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

There's not much point in asking for advice, and then dismissing it out of hand. It just means we're wasting our time in trying to help you when the time could be spent on those that co-operate with us.

 

[koolkat77]

Have you done the steps properly: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/19151-windows-old-folder-delete.html

 

[tejasvi]

if i install a new windows in F drive then would i be able to delete C drive completely and reformat it

 

[koolkat77]

How many windows do you have installed now? and on which partition's one are you logged into?

 

[tejasvi]

currently i have windows 7 in E drive and from there i operate my computer.
i have in total 3 windows . 2 in C drive and 1 in E drive

 

[event3horizon]

currently i have windows 7 in E drive and from there i operate my computer.
i have in total 3 windows . 2 in C drive and 1 in E drive

How do you know from which one you operate?

Go into RUN command, type in msconfig, and click the BOOT menu tab. Take a snapshot. This will allow us to see more info of what's going on.

 

[koolkat77]

The windows.old is not counted as it is no longer working. So you have 2 in total.

Could you post a screenshot of your boot tab in msconfig.

1. click on rb:
2. type msconfig in search
3. open>boot tab> and post a screen shot of it.

 

[gregrocker]

The correct way to delete an OS is to delete it's partition, not the windows folder which will give you all kinds of problems even if you Take Ownership. But to do this in a dual boot you must first move the System Active flags to the other Windows partition.

However in your case the other Win7 on E is on a Logical partition which cannot be marked Active to receive the Win7 System boot files.

To solve this you would boot free Partition Wizard bootable CD, rightclick on the E to Modify>Convert to Primary, click OK. You will also need to repeat this on D and F since they are not contiguous as a Logical extended partition must remain. Then click Apply.

Once E is Primary, you can rightclick it to Modify>Set to Active, OK, then click on Disk # to highlight it, from Disk tab select Rebuild MBR, OK, Apply. Reboot to see if Win7 starts. If not run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until Win7 starts and E holds the System flag. You can then delete the old C partition and create a new partition there.

Also, if you did not boot the Win7 installer when installing to E it will not be C when booted. Plus it is more desireable to have Win7 on C in the first partition slot.

So if you want Win7 to be on C when booted as it normally is when installed correctly from boot, I would consider reinstalling after moving all data off the HD, deleting all partitions during reinstall, then creating new ones to format, install Win7 to first install partition.

 

[tejasvi]

here is the screen shot

 

[tejasvi]

The correct way to delete an OS is to delete it's partition, not the windows folder which will give you all kinds of problems even if you Take Ownership. But to do this in a dual boot you must first move the System Active flags to the other Windows partition.

However in your case the other Win7 on E is on a Logical partition which cannot be marked Active to receive the Win7 System boot files.

To solve this you would boot free Partition Wizard bootable CD, rightclick on the E to Modify>Convert to Primary, click OK. You will also need to repeat this on D and F since they are not contiguous as a Logical extended partition must remain. Then click Apply.

Once E is Primary, you can rightclick it to Modify>Set to Active, OK, then click on Disk # to highlight it, from Disk tab select Rebuild MBR, OK, Apply. Reboot to see if Win7 starts. If not run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times until Win7 starts and E holds the System flag. You can then delete the old C partition and create a new partition there.

Also, if you did not boot the Win7 installer when installing to E it will not be C when booted. Plus it is more desireable to have Win7 on C in the first partition slot.

So if you want Win7 to be on C when booted as it normally is when installed correctly from boot, I would consider reinstalling after moving all data off the HD, deleting all partitions during reinstall, then creating new ones to format, install Win7 to first install partition.

this seems to be right way , descriptive , can you do it for me VIA Remote assistance