Remove XP boot while keeping Windows 7.

[Guevuron]

Hey guys, I've just installed Windows 7 on my computer and now I'd like to get rid of Windows XP in its entirety but first I want to disable the boot choice and boot in Windows 7 by default. What are my options? Attached is my disk management....
Windows XP is installed on my c: and w7 on my d:.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Night Hawk]

Welcome to the Seven Forums! Guevuron

Can I assume you are pointing at 7 being installed on D? If this is fresh install with nothing to lose you have a few options open. Note this will also depend on how you will want the partition(s) to appear afterwards.

1) backup all files you want to removable media if no second drive is present and wipe the drive entirely for a new single OS primary.

2) reformat C and install 7 fresh there followed by a reformat of D. The entry for the D install of 7 can be removed afterwards.

3) reformat both C and D to see a clean install on C fresh from the start.

4) waste plenty of time deleting C and moving D forward to the front of the drive later expanding C outward or creating a new D for storage.

Since 7 will now be the primary OS the decision to keep the D primary will be yours. If you store files elsewhere such as an external drive you may simply opt to expand C after D is gone or start off with a brand new primary for a second clean install to insure partition integrity.

 

[Guevuron]

Hello and thanks.

Previously I had all my data on C along with windows XP, so I merely copied said data onto D hoping that I will now be able to simply format C and keep win 7 OS on D.

 

[Night Hawk]

Well that would be option #5 while eventually you may find it better having 7 on the actual C and simply using that to backup all your files as a second storage and backup partition. That's covered under steps #2 + #3 for optional use of the D partition once you start off fresh.

You have to decide which works out best for you however while this is simply an observation to pass along. Many would simply go with a single large primary once a second drive is available while opting to move D forwared with the present C removed and then either expand C or create a new D partition.

The move of D forward depending on the amount of files and partition sizes can take upto a full hour when booted live from a cd with a partitioning program like Partition Wizard or even the free Linux drive tool GParted live. The move generally takes much longer then the 7 install however if you don't have many programs on as well.

 

[gregrocker]

Hey dude. You can keep your Win7, just need to convert it from Logical to Primary so it can be marked Active to have the System MBR written to it. Here's how:

Use free Partition Wizard bootable CD, boot PW CD, select 1 for screen res, rightclick on XP partitition>Delete.

Next rightclick Win7 partition>Modify>Convert to Primary, OK. Then Modify>Mark as Active, OK. Then Resize>drag left grey border all the way to left over deleted XP space, OK, Apply all Steps.

Now boot the Win7 DVD REpair console or Repair CD, click through to Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots until Win7 starts on its own.

Backup your files first as resizing operations can fail, although we haven't had one fail in hundreds we've helped with here using PW CD. Just follow the steps and ask any needed questions.

 

[Night Hawk]

It's already an active primary since 7 is running from it. The boot files as well as the enty for XP will likely need to be addressed however once the XP primary is reformatted.

 

[gregrocker]

Hi Nighthawk -

The Win7 partition needs to be marked Active so Startup Repair will write the System MBR to it after XP is deleted.

And since a Logical partition cannot be marked Active, it needs to be converted to Primary first.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hey dude. You can keep your Win7, just need to convert it from Logical to Primary so it can be marked Active to have the System MBR written to it. Here's how:

Use free Partition Wizard bootable CD, boot PW CD, select 1 for screen res, rightclick on XP partitition>Delete.

Next rightclick Win7 partition>Modify>Convert to Primary, OK. Then Modify>Mark as Active, OK. Then Resize>drag left grey border all the way to left over deleted XP space, OK, Apply all Steps.

Now boot the Win7 DVD REpair console or Repair CD, click through to Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots until Win7 starts on its own.

Backup your files first as resizing operations can fail, although we haven't had one fail in hundreds we've helped with here using PW CD. Just follow the steps and ask any needed questions.

Very good info Greg, one other suggestion would be to do a wipe of the XP partition before it is deleted so as to over-write all the XP code to remove any chance of corruption, Option Three in the Partition Wizard tutorial.

 

[Night Hawk]

Hi Nighthawk -

The Win7 partition needs to be marked Active so Startup Repair will write the System MBR to it after XP is deleted.

And since a Logical partition cannot be marked Active, it needs to be converted to Primary first.

The 7 installer first scans all drives for 7 installations first and lists any found before you can enter the repair tools menu and use the startup repair. You then may see the message that the 7 installation was recovered.

One good example of that was just seen here when testing an idea of adding in the entry of a 7 image restored to the second HD while the first identical host drive was unplugged. The startup repair tool automatically made the second drive the active OS and the host install would fail to load until unplugging the second drive and running it again to see a normal boot.

Once the host drive was unplugged and the second plugged back in the repair tool made the second drive bootable on it's own. Likewise when having two 64bit RC installs on two separate drives without an entry for the second the startup repair (recovered) the second install into the host install when repairng the host from a Grub install error.

With the XP primary wiped the repair tool may still fail to repair the 7 boot information and files since those were likely at the root of the XP primary if 7 was installed after XP. That will mean using the command prompt option while booted live from the 7 dvd.

What worked for removing Grub from the mbr also works when the boot entries are? At the command prompt option simply type:

"bootrec /nt60 C:"
"bootrec /fixmbr"
"bootrec /fixboot"(optional)

The last option would be the need to rebuild the BCD store entirely. And Windows won't install onto any extended partition only a primary type. Both XP and 7 are on primaries there.

 

[gregrocker]

All bootrec and bootsect commands are automated in Win7 Startup Repair.

 

[Night Hawk]

I've seen times when the startup repair tool wasn't able to where you had to use the command prompt option to see results. The other option to try first is at the command prompt where you simply type in the "bootrec /rebuildbcd" command and close that up if you see the confirmation before use of the startup repair tool.

In the event you still are not able to boot into 7 after a few tries with the repair tool you can delete the old BCD store to see a new replace it. You would enter the following just the way you see it here.

bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
c:
cd boot
attrib bcd -s -h -r
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
bootrec /RebuildBcd

You can refer to the MS page for this at How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows