Remove Dual Boot

[gmansa]

Hi

I have a drive with 4 partitions:
1: 6.83GB Recovery Partition (laptop drive begin used in desktop, can't remember but think it belong to the laptop, so I would like to keep it)
2: 29.30GB Vista 32bit
3: 29.30GB Windows 7 64bit
4: 46.36GB Just a data drive

I would like to keep Windows 7 but safely remove Vista from the boot and then format partition 2 and combine it with 4, I will move everything around to combine 2 and 4.

One thing I have never really understood is where the boot loader is located.

Any help will be great please!!!

 

[Jonathan_King]

Go ahead and delete the Vista partition.

Then run Startup Repair. If it doesn't work, mark the Windows 7 partition as active and run startup repair again. See my post http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/34853-common-installation-problems.html for instructions on marking the partition as active.

When you can boot into 7, download Partition Wizard and expand/move your partitions as needed.

 

[gmansa]

Go ahead and delete the Vista partition.

Then run Startup Repair. If it doesn't work, mark the Windows 7 partition as active and run startup repair again. See my post http://www.sevenforums.com/installation-setup/34853-common-installation-problems.html for instructions on marking the partition as active.

When you can boot into 7, download Partition Wizard and expand/move your partitions as needed.

Thanks Jonathan

That was what I was initially planning to do, but I'm really not in the mood to do any fixing at the moment.

Those 2 partitions have the following flags:
2: Vista: System, Active, Primary Partition
3: Windows 7: Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition

From what I understand the boot loader used will be the one on the Active Partition. So if I change the Windows 7 partition to the Active one, what is the boot loader I need to look for on the Windows 7 drive?

 

[Saltgrass]

From what I understand the boot loader used will be the one on the Active Partition. So if I change the Windows 7 partition to the Active one, what is the boot loader I need to look for on the Windows 7 drive?

You are correct, the Win 7 will need to be active for a repair since the system needs an active partition to boot. The files needed are bootmgr and a folder called boot. They are hidden system files so you will need to set up your view to see them.

An alternative to running startup repair is to use the following command in an administrative command prompt, hit enter after.

bcdboot C:\windows /s C:

Wait for a response before closing window. This will put the boot files in the Win 7 directory, assuming C: is the Win 7 directory.

To open an administrative command prompt, type CMD in the Start Menu search box then hit CTRL+Shift Enter.

 

[gmansa]

From what I understand the boot loader used will be the one on the Active Partition. So if I change the Windows 7 partition to the Active one, what is the boot loader I need to look for on the Windows 7 drive?

You are correct, the Win 7 will need to be active for a repair since the system needs an active partition to boot. The files needed are bootmgr and a folder called boot. They are hidden system files so you will need to set up your view to see them.

An alternative to running startup repair is to use the following command in an administrative command prompt, hit enter after.

bcdboot C:\windows /s C:

Wait for a response before closing window. This will put the boot files in the Win 7 directory, assuming C: is the Win 7 directory.

To open an administrative command prompt, type CMD in the Start Menu search box then hit CTRL+Shift Enter.

Thanks Saltgrass, just did it and rebooted, worked like a charm, thanks a mil!!!

 

[Jonathan_King]

Be sure the Windows 7 partition is active, then run startup repair. That will write a new boot loader to the 7 partition.

 

[gregrocker]

Do you want to recover the deleted Vista space into Win7? If so, post back a screenshot of full Disk Management drive map using Snipping Tool in Start Menu, attach file using paper clip in Reply box.

We will give you the steps to do this using free Partition Wizard bootable CD.