format primary hard drive

[fuzzytoad]

Hey, I'm running 7 on a logical drive (I have windows xp on my primary, which I don't really want anymore). It should be alright if I just format my primary hard drive partition yeah? If not is there any alternative to completely overhauling my OS?

 

[nate42nd]

I THINK you could image the drive Windows 7 is on.....format and partition your drive and restore the image to where you need it.

Get a second opinion before you do this, but I think it should work.

 

[alphanumeric]

If you are dual booting 7 and XP your boot loader is probably on the XP/primary drive. If you format it I think you will find that you can't boot into windows 7 any more. Is each OS on it's own hard drive or one hard drive with two partitions?

 

[nate42nd]

If you are dual booting 7 and XP your boot loader is probably on the XP/primary drive. If you format it I think you will find that you can't boot into windows 7 any more. Is each OS on it's own hard drive or one hard drive with two partitions?

This is true, you will have to take care of that. EasyBCD should do it or there are other programs and methods you can use.

 

[SIW2]

Lots of alternatives.

Depends how many partitions you have and how big they are.

You could use the free Partition Wizard to convert the logical to Primary.

Make the 7 ( now Primary) into the "system " partition and then delete XP and copy 7 partition into that space, or use the Move/Resize function on a free partition manager to extend 7 partition into the space.

Or, make an image of the 7 partition - Macrium free is good for that - restore it to the current XP partition , selecting Active and Primary during the restore - then run startup repair from the 7 install dvd 3 times.

Post a screenie of your Disk Management window - and we can the easiest/best way:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/9733-how-post-screenshot-seven-forums.html

 

[fuzzytoad]

Here's a screen of my disk management. It's all on one hard drive. I'm booting off the C:drive right now, which is has my windows 7 and I want to delete the D drive which is active and boot right now. Thanks for the help.

 

[alphanumeric]

To be honest that screen shot just confuses the hell out of me?

 

[fuzzytoad]

Well here's an attachment using window's disk management, if it helps. What about it confuses you?

If it's about the names that's just because I got bored of the old "local disk" thing. They don't really mean anything. Omega (C: ) is the drive I'm booting off of, it has Windows 7 and its a logical. Alpha (D: ) has windows XP and it's the primary drive I'm trying to remove. All the other ones are just partitions I've made for media/programs etc.

There's an extra unallocated space separate from the rest of the free space. I don't know why that happened but I just resized my D drive since I didn't need all 50gb I allocated for it, and apparently they sequestered that bit of space (because it was cut from the primary drive I assume?).

 

[alphanumeric]

You are not actually booting off of your C drive, you are booting off of your D drive. Actually we shouldn't be using drive letters and should be talking partitions. I bet if you boot up in XP and open disk management the drive letters will be different. The primary partition (the one you are booting from) will be C not D. The reality is you are booting off of the primary active partition, the one with XP on it. That is where the boot loader is. If you format it you will get a no operating system found error message.

 

[SIW2]

Use Partition Wizard - rt click the C drive and select Modify>Set as primary. Apply.

Then d/l this View attachment sispar.zip ( as usual, rt click, properties>unblock>apply>ok).

Unzip it and dble click on sispar.cmd. Select C as the system partition.

Hope it helps.