Solved How to format drive (windows xp) on dual boot system (windows 7 pro)

[bluesky]

I am not sure how to do this. I originally had XP and added another drive installing windows 7 professional (64 bit) and have a dual boot system. I transferred or saved all of the data from the XP drive and want to format it, however it will not allow me to format it.
I boot up on drive C: which is w7 but can select to boot up on drive D: which is XP.
I have attached screen shot of the disk manager, but
Disk 0 is D: is NTFS Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition) which is the windows XP drive.
Disk 1 is C: is NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) which is the w7p drive.

Not sure how to do this without loosing the w7p drive. I thought about unplugging the w7p drive and booting from the w7p disk, but not sure how that would work when plugging the original w7p drive back in.

Thanks.

 

[ignatzatsonic]

I'd guess your problem is that you want to boot from C and format D, but Windows frowns at that when it sees that D contains your system files.

This probably happened because you left the XP drive connected when you installed Windows 7 to the other drive.

I also suspect that if you disconnect the D drive you can't boot at all from C. Is that correct? That would also be because your system files are on D.

If your system files were on C, I think you could then boot from C with D disconnected.

And you should also then be able to boot from C and format D.

You can use an application like BCDedit to copy system files from C to D.

Or you may be able to do it by disconnecting D and running system repair from a Windows install DVD--you may have to run it several times.

Others may have more ideas. That's my best guess just looking at the pic you posted.

 

[bluesky]

I also suspect that if you disconnect the D drive you can't boot at all from C. Is that correct? Yes that is correct.

 

[DavidE]

I think your easiest way to fix this to use EasyBCD and move the boot code to the Disk 1 HD using this tutorial:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/209885-bootmgr-move-c-easybcd.html

When you installed Win 7 you had the Win XP HD (Disk 0) connected, right ?
If so, that's why Win 7 updated and used the bootloader you already had installed on the XP drive.

When installing an OS it's best to disconnect all HD/SSD that are not used to install TO.
You should only have connected the drive you are installing TO, and the device you are installing FROM (DVD,flash stick,etc.).
Then the install will put a bootloader on the drive where windows is installed.

 

[bluesky]

I had to search for the EasyBCD, but now have it. It is version 2.3. The tutorial was for a different version, however I think that I know what to select, but wanted to make sure with your advice. See screen shots.





Thanks again.

 

[DavidE]

No, you clicked the Advanced Settings button.

You need to
1) click the BCD Backup/Repair button
2) click the Change boot drive radio button
3) click the Perform Action button



That will open a window where you make sure the C drive is selected, and then click OK.

 

[bluesky]

formatting successful however data already used?

I did what you said and still could not format D:. The disk manager info looked the same as before.

Disk 0 is D: is NTFS Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition) which is the windows XP drive.
Disk 1 is C: is NTFS Healthy (Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) which is the w7p drive.

So here is what I did. I rebooted and looked at the MSI bios, and noticed that even though Disk 1 is selected to boot as before, there was another section that you could also select the priority of the the hard drives, see the bottom of the photo included.



After doing that I was able to format D:, however I am puzzled after formatting it from the DOS prompt that it shows that there are 158 MB that are used, out of 1TB. Any idea what that is about?

 

[DavidE]

Post a maximized/resized screen print of Disk Management using these instructions:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/274797-disk-management-post-screen-capture-image.html

 

[bluesky]

Okay, here is the screen shot.

 

[bluesky]

and here is the properties of D:

 

[DavidE]

Ok, the bootloader is now on the C drive, that looks good.
I wanted to make sure your bootloader wasn't somehow still on D.
There is probably some "overheard" such as System Volume Information using a little space on the D drive and that is ok.
If you want to see files/folders that normally can't be seen in Windows (file) Explorer you can try WizTree.
The have a Portable Zip available, no install needed.
Antibody Software - WizTree finds the files and folders using the most disk space on your hard drive

Your D partition is still Active and that can cause problems.
If you want to mark it Inactive here is a tutorial:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/197157-partition-mark-inactive.html

If you want to really clean the D drive including removing the old bootloader code (MBR) you can do a Diskpart Clean.
You would have to create a new partition after doing the Clean.
Here is a tutorial:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

If you use these commands, make sure you select the correct drive or you could cause major problems.

 

[bluesky]

active partition

Okay, I think that I know why D: is listed as active, but not sure how to solve it. When I boot up, it still shows the dual boot selection; "earlier version of windows" and "windows 7", even though it no longer has XP or anything on it. I have not tried selecting the earlier version as not sure if that would cause a problem.

 

[DavidE]

If you did select the "earlier version of windows" i'm sure it would give you an error and not boot Windows because you formatted the D drive, so Windows is not installed there now.
Then you would have to restart the PC to choose the working bootable OS.

In EasyBCD you can delete the boot entry for "earlier version of windows".
If you want a screen print let me know, i'll have to reboot in Win 8.1 cause that's where i have EasyBCD installed.

You can also delete the boot entry by running msconfig
Select the Boot tab, select the OS from the list you want to delete, and click Delete.

Here's a msconfig snip where i'm showing that i could delete Win 7 from my boot options if i wanted to.
I'm on Win 10 right now, but Win 7 msconfig works the same way.

 

[bluesky]

Changing active

Note: I have changed drive C: to Disk 0 position from Disk 1, which is where D: is now positioned.

I used EasyBCD to delete the earlier version of windows and checked the status of D: using Computer mgt and D: is still showing that it is active. I rebooted and it still showed it as being active, so I ran msconfig as you suggested and the "earlier version of windows" is not there only windows 7, yet after checking the status of D: again, it still is showing as being active.

 

[DavidE]

Did you use this tutorial to make D Inactive ?
Partition - Mark as Inactive

Just removing it from the boot entries won't change it to Inactive.

Can you disconnect the D drive and make sure Windows 7 boots ok ?

 

[bluesky]

Fixed - Fantastic

Okay, I performed the partition steps and it changed the status on D: as no longer being active.



I also unplugged D: and it booted up okay.

It is Fixed! Wow, DavidE thank you. I am so glad that there are people like you to help. Great Job!

Best wishes and thanks again.

 

[DavidE]

You're welcome and glad to see you got it fixed and working !

 

[AddRAM]

It looks perfect now, good job guys