HP Laptop upgrade from Vista - 4 frustrating failures!!

[gregrocker]

SIW2 did I get the steps right above for his extraction?

(Teacher's in the room!)

 

[jecook]

Backup is now running, I know I need to reset the C partition(Vista) to active again but do I need to also do bcdboot command for C ?

 

[SIW2]

Looks OK.

He can set it up to avoid running startup repair by doing bcdboot cmd and then generalizing the bcd entries.

Not for C - it is for the win 7 partition (F as I recall?)

bcdboot f:\windows /s f:

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device boot

bcdedit /set {default} device boot

bcdedit /set {default} osdevice boot

Not compulsory -just saves running startup repair after resizing the 7 partition. ( As long as bootsector is sound - otherwise you may need one run of it.)

If you are going to delete C and resize F right now (as per Greg's post with PW ) - you can leave F active.

You only needed to set C active again if you didn't have the boot critical files on F and wanted to restart.

 

[jecook]

Backup will take a little while I guess so have the Partition Wizard disk handy and the W7 Install disk in order to disappear windows Vista!

From Gregs Instrctions above;
1) Boot from Partition Wizard Boot disk

2) Set Win 7 partition (F) to Active - that will automatically make C inactive as I understand as only one partition can be active I believe.

3) Delete Vista partition (C) - I think I will leave HP recovery partition at the moment and do that separately.

4) Resize Win 7 Partition (F) - Do I need to change the drive letter to C at the same time?

5) Aplly all the steps

6) Boot with the Win 7 DVD to get to the Repair Console

7) Run Startup repair 3 times

8) I presume I then Reboot from the hard drive at that point.

Let me know if I have missed anything

Jon

 

[SIW2]

4) Resize Win 7 Partition (F) - Do I need to change the drive letter to C at the same time?

I wouldn't - better leave it as F.

The rest sounds ok.

 

[jecook]

Our posts crossed, SIW2's last slightly confused me.

The Win7 Partition is successfully backed up from Disk Management GUI.

At present F is still active.

Are you saying I should leave it active then run some additional bcdboot commands before I boot from Partition Wizard to delete vista and resize the win7 partition?

If I reallocate Win7 to C is that OK?

 

[jecook]

Ok we crossed again, I will follow your suggestion reallocation of drive letters

 

[jecook]

Fingers crossed

 

[gregrocker]

From Gregs Instrctions above;
1) Boot from Partition Wizard Boot disk

2) Set Win 7 partition (F) to Active - that will automatically make C inactive as I understand as only one partition can be active I believe. Mark C inactive anyway to assure C: deletion.

3) Delete Vista partition (C) - I think I will leave HP recovery partition at the moment and do that separately. Undo all if it won't delete and we will give Diskpart commands to force it, and do all other steps at the same time. Had these all ready for you but wanted you to have a graphical interface (nicer).

4) Resize Win 7 Partition (F) - Do I need to change the drive letter to C at the same time? No. Cannot be done, unless Win7 decides it wants to.

5) Aplly all the steps

6) Boot with the Win 7 DVD to get to the Repair Console Click through to Recov tools list.

7) Run Startup repair 3 times Reboot after each fix.

8) I presume I then Reboot from the hard drive at that point. Run Startup Repair until WIn7 starts. If not we may need to manually run bootrec or bootsect to jog installer to find installation. Rare.

Let me know if I have missed anything

See above^

 

[jecook]

Thanks Greg, decided to do the recovery partition as well, am now going to reboot with Win7 Installation disk

 

[jecook]

Windows 7 disk just went to install screen, do I need to do something else?

 

[jecook]

On reboot it asks:

Press any key to boot from CD or DVD...
If key pressed it boots into the install screen

If left to it's own devices it says NTLDR is missing

 

[jecook]

panic over was confused by apparent start of install found repair console on second page

 

[gregrocker]

On reboot it asks:

Press any key to boot from CD or DVD...
If key pressed it boots into the install screen

If left to it's own devices it says NTLDR is missing

This is expected.

Now boot into DVD Repair My Computer and run Startup Repair 3 separate boring times.

It will do its dozen tests and attempt to repair the MBR, then rewrite the MBR to 7. Usually takes 2-3 reboots.

 

[jecook]

boot looks strange, it comes up with user name but then goes into 'Preparing your desktop' an then I get a blue screen which has in right hand corner 'Windows 7, Build 7600, This copy of windows is not Genuine' !!!

 

[gregrocker]

Use Computer>properties activation link to insert your correct product key.

This sometimes happens on Reimaging operations, rarely so far on Resizing.

 

[SIW2]

LOL. 7 can be sensitive to being moved around.

Go to System properties window- and reactivate.

 

[gregrocker]

Boot into PW to run System File Check to get a clean bill of health on the Resizing operation

 

[jecook]

where do I find system properties window? or Computer properties activation link, all I have is a blank blue screen with the not genuine note in the corner no icons at all. I can run task manager that is all

 

[jecook]

I can run a cmd console but presumably not in administrator mode