Solved Windows 7 installed on recovery

[disco]

Hey all,

I just installed Windows 7 Home Premium 32bit on my Dell laptop. After a bit of googling I have seen that I installed it on my recovery drive and have now run out of room, and it seems vista is still installed on my C: drive (I have the option of either running vista or 7 when I start up). So, my question is, how do I get rid of vista and install 7 onto the C: drive without destroying something? Do I just copy the files from recovery onto the C: drive and replace the ones there?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello disco, welcome to Seven Forums!


Before we make any specific recommendations will you please post a snip/screen-shot of the entire disk management drive map with a full description as to which drive/partition is which, so we can see what you have going on as there may be a fairly simple way to resolve the situation.

In the Windows start menu right click computer and click manage, in the left pane of the "Computer Management" window that opens click disk management and post a snip of that.


How to Upload and Post a Screenshot and File in Seven Forums

 

[disco]

This is my recovery drive, where windows 7 is installed.

And my C: drive, where all of the old stuff is. I did a full install instead of the "upgrade" option as I didn't mind if all of the stuff in here got wiped, I have backed up what I wanted... Just realised now as I started downloading things again that it is all saving onto the recovery drive instead of the C: drive, and when I had a look in C: drive program files, it seems everything is still there (much to my annoyance as I was hoping that installing Windows7 would not only give me windows7 but would also clean up all the rubbish I have downloaded haha)

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

None of that is what we asked for and it is no help.

 

[disco]

Sorry, got caught up posting that additonal stuff and missed your post!

 

[SIW2]

Hiya BFK - have fun with this one.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

The OS you are in right now is the one installed to the recovery partition and is now worthless as a factory recovery partition and it can be removed without issue.

Is there anything on that partition you need to save to C: partition, the Vista partition before you remove the 'new' Windows 7 partition?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hiya BFK - have fun with this one.

Hello SIW, I'm on my way to bed for the night and it's Greg's turn!

 

[SIW2]

Have a good night.

 

[disco]

The OS you are in right now is the one installed to the recovery partition and is now worthless as a factory recovery partition and it can be removed without issue.

Is there anything on that partition you need to save to C: partition, the Vista partition before you remove the 'new' Windows 7 partition?

Currently there isn't anything on here that needs to be saved, everything of value is still on my USB drive.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

I'll leave you with this, I suggest you completely wipe the entire Hard Disk Drive and start over with a clean install of Windows 7; have a thorough look through this information below.


After you have copied out or made back-ups of the data you need to save to external media, use Step One of this tutorial at the first link below to do a wipe (secure erase) to the entire Hard Disk Drive / Solid State Drive.

• Then if you do not want to create the new Windows 7 "System Reserved" partition use the outline in Step Two #2 to create, format and mark Active a single 100GB partition to do the installation to.
• If you do want to create the "System Reserved" partition use the outline in Step Two #3 to create, format and mark Active the System Reserved partition and then create and format the 100GB partition to do the installation to.

Either way, running the "clean all" then creating and formatting the partition(s) using diskpart will get you the best possible space to do a clean install of Windows 7 to; you can always extend the Windows partition to include the remaining unallocated space on the HDD / SSD or create additional Primary partitions or an Extended partition after the installation completes if you choose.

SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

DISKPART : At PC Startup

Do a Clean Install with a Upgrade Windows 7 Version

 

[disco]

Thanks heaps, have a good sleep!

 

[SIW2]

Before you do that - are you ever going to want to put the original operating system back on from the recovery partition ?

For example, if you wanted to use for something, or were going to sell the machine at some time in the future?

 

[disco]

Woohoo reinstalled and everything is looking great- huge thanks Bare Foot Kid! That tutorial is great, very easy for a newbie to use.

SIW2: I got your message too late, but thankfully I am not wanting to put Vista back on, nor am I looking to sell this laptop.

Thank you again guys, problem solved!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello again, you're welcome; good to see you got it running and thanks for the update.

 

[theog]

Hiya BFK - have fun with this one.

Hello SIW, I'm on my way to bed for the night and it's Greg's turn!

No time for bed, you need to post 27/7 Ted

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hiya BFK - have fun with this one.

Hello SIW, I'm on my way to bed for the night and it's Greg's turn!

No time for bed, you need to post 27/7 Ted

:roflmao:
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