Deleting old XP Partition from dual boot with Windows7

[Gwynny]

How to delete old XP partition from my dual boot system. Smaller original hard drive is in 4 partitions XP don't work after upgrades, but Windows 7 continued as normal. I had pretty much abandoned XP anyway, but now it would make sense to delete XP completely, so here is a screenshot of my set-up. Can anyone tell me what to do?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Show us a screen shot of Windows Disk Management. With any luck, you can simply delete the XP partition, but that picture is needed before you do anything.

 

[Gwynny]

Herewith is the Disk management Screen shot.

 

[Gwynny]

It is still labelled 'Vista' but that was replaced with windows 7 ages ago.

 

[gregrocker]

You'll need to convert the Win7 partition to Primary in order for it to accept the System Boot files so it can boot itself and you can get rid of XP. Then you can delete the XP partition and resize Win7 into the preferred left-hand space using the same tool.

To do this back up your files first.

Download Partition Wizard boot CD, burn to CD using WIndows Image Burner.

Boot the CD, rightclick C to Modify>Set to Primary, click OK.

Then rightclick C again to Modify>Set to Active, OK, Apply both steps.

Now power down to unplug the other hard drive so it can't have the boot files derailed to it as can happen if any Primary partitions precede the Win7 partition you are moving the boot files onto. I would swap the data cable from the data hard drive to C hard drive so this cannot happen in the future.

Now boot into the Win7 installation media or System Repair Disk to run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times to write the System Boot files to the Active partition. Once Win7 starts and is marked System Active, you can when ready delete the XP partition using PW CD, then use Partition Wizard to Resize C Partition into the deleted XP space - Video Help.

Have the Win7 disk at hand since resizing on the boot sector can sometimes require repair again.