Hard drive configuration help please...

[Bizness]

Chaps, some assistance please.

When installing Windows 7 about a year ago, I plumped for partitioning off my hard drive to keep Windows XP and installing Win7 on separate partition.

Recently I added an SSD and have installed Win7 on that and now I want to remove the XP partition, reallocate the available space to my Sata Win7 install to begin the (long) process of making the SSD the primary and only OS on the machine.

I've copy boot.mgr and the boot folder to my SataWin7 drive and then restarted the computer with the DVD in, selecting repair so I can run command prompt.

Running Diskpart, I deleted the XP partition but for some reason I'm getting an error when I try and make my sata Win7 partition the active partition. I've subsequently rebooted and repaired the machine to restore the Win XP partition so I can carry on booting the machine (hence I'm typing now), but can anyone throw light on to what the problem is here?

Drives setup...

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Recently I added an SSD and have installed Win7 on that and now I want to remove the XP partition, reallocate the available space to my Sata Win7 install to begin the (long) process of making the SSD the primary and only OS on the machine.

Running Diskpart, I deleted the XP partition but for some reason I'm getting an error when I try and make my sata Win7 partition the active partition. I've subsequently rebooted and repaired the machine to restore the Win XP partition so I can carry on booting the machine (hence I'm typing now), but can anyone throw light on to what the problem is here?

Drives setup...

If you want to end up with Win 7 on the SSD as the only OS in the case, why do you want Win 7 on the SATA drive? Can't you just format the partitions on the SATA drive however you want?

I guess I'm confused and don't understand your current situation or goal.

 

[Bizness]

I'm only playing with the SSD in truth and ultimately I think we should forget that part of the problem. Long term, I'll be going SSD with user folders on the hard drive I'm trying to merge back together from the 2 partitions but that's irrelevent now really.

So, XP and Win 7 on one disk and I can't activate the Win 7 partition after I've removed XP through diskpart. ANy idea why?

Cheers for your help btw.

 

[Bizness]

Diskpart says that the disk is as follows...

Partition 1 Primary - (XP)
Partition 0 Extended
Partition 2 Logical - (Win7)

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Hmmm.

I don't use logical partitions, but I have a feeling there may be a problem in making a logical partition active.

You may have to use a prog like Partition Wizard to convert that logical partition to a standard primary partition. I don't think it can be done from within Windows.

 

[Bizness]

Cool, I'll give that a go, I've partition magic here so I'll try that first.

Thanks for your help!

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Look out for Partition Magic. I'm not sure it is compatible with and safe with Win 7.

Partition Wizard IS compatible. There is a free download out there. Make the bootable CD.

 

[Bizness]

Ta.

 

[theog]

How did you get into this mess?

The base
Your BIOS is booting to disk2 partition 1 for WinXP
than boots to disk2 partition 2 for your first install of Windows 7
than Disk1.

Did you have a multi boot menu?

The OS is best on Disk0.

 

[Bizness]

How did you get into this mess?

Very good question, not really sure. Partition Wizard is no help, can't change the logical partition to primary and XP is listed as Active & Boot.

What are my options chaps? Until I can spend a great deal of time moving settings from current/old Win7 to new SSD Win7 (which I want to reinstall anyway) I can't make major OS changes. Just want rid of XP on that drive and to reallocate the space to facilitate changes.

 

[Bizness]

If it's any help, the boot menu lists

Older OS
Windows 7 (which I know is the new SSD) - defaulting to
Windows 7

 

[theog]

How many OS's do you wont?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

Easeus Partition Master can supposedly change logical to primary:

EASEUS Partition Master 7.5.1 Beta/ Partition Master 7.1.1

Another possibility is to clone the logical to another drive and then restore it as a primary partition.

 

[Bizness]

How many OS's do you wont?

Just one. Windows 7.

As I said, lets ignore the SSD setup, which I'll remove for now anyway and worry about another day.

 

[Bizness]

Incidentally I had the same setup on my laptop.

Win XP
Partitioned
Installed Win 7
Copy boot.mgr and boot folder to Win 7
Reboot and repair with Win7 disk
diskpart delete xp partition
diskpart Win7 partition active
bootrec /fixmbr

And worked straight away. Can't fathom why it's not working here too.

 

[theog]

Lets not ignore the SSD drive, as this is the best drive for the OS.

You can not boot to a Logical drive.

 

[Bizness]

So what do you recommend?

 

[ignatzatsonic]

If you don't want to put the OS on the SSD, your options are limited due to the logical drive issue.

My only suggestions are Easeus or cloning as mentioned above.

 

[Bizness]

If you don't want to put the OS on the SSD, your options are limited due to the logical drive issue.

My only suggestions are Easeus or cloning as mentioned above.

Cheers mate. Just confused as to why this worked fine on my laptop and now the same process isn't working on my home desktop.

Laptop is Pro 32bit and Desktop Home 64bit.

 

[theog]

1) Unplug the cable from Disk2 & plug in to SSD drive.Make sure BIOS boot order is SSD first HD boot.
2) Unplug all other cable from HD's.
3) Install OS to SSD.

Have a read of those tutorial:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/149969-ssd-install-transfer-operating-system.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/70822-ssd-tweaks-optimizations-windows-7-a.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/91339-ssd-hdd-optimize-windows-reinstallation.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/87555-user-profile-change-default-location.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/18629-user-folders-change-default-location.html

When you are up & running, replace the HD's one at a time, sort out the DATA if need.

When you get to the drive with the old OS's on, save your data, than you can delete the partitions.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2668-partition-volume-delete.html?ltr=P
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/2674-partition-volume-create-new.html?ltr=P