Before you do anything, check which partition is the active partition. It can be C or D. If it is D, no need to move the bootmgr.
For any further discussion I suggest you post a picture of your Disk Management.
Other than that, your logic sounds OK. Just make sure you image the XP and data partitions before you do anything. Losing a partition is easy and has happened to the best of us.
Thanks for the reply.
What program do you think is best for imaging a partition? Possibly free.
Thanks again.
Most people here use free Macrium. I have made a tutorial which also comprises a download link of the WinPE CD (saves you at least 2 hours) and a tutorial by Keith (Kado) that shows the recovery procedure. Imaging with free Macrium
Note that free Macrium can be used for XP, Vista and Windows7 - and any data partition. There is no real difference.
Thanks for the reply. I'll a post an image of Disk Management as soon as I have it, to be sure about the whole thing.
Another question: after formatting C, the change of drive letter from D to C will mess up the OS? I mean, links, programs, etc...?
Here's the Disk Management screenshot.
The screenshot is in italian, but I can translate it to you.
- Hard Drive G (DATA) is marked as Healthy.
- PQSERVICE is marked as Healthy and Unknown Partition: I don't know what this partition is.
- Hard Drive C (VISTA) is marked as Healthy and System
- Hard Drive D (WINXP) is marked as Healthy and Boot
Hmm, hard to tell.
PQSERVICE seems to be the recovery partition.
What is not clear whether C or D is the 'active' partition. 'Active' means that it contains the bootmgr.
Thanks for your answer. I know what you're saying and I don't know why there isn't "Active".
I just can remember you that this screenshot was made with WinXP: maybe in that OS "Active" wasn't used... Or it has been mis-translated (very common). Any other program can make us sure of which is the active partition? Maybe I can use Vista Disk Management tool?
You could use the bootable CD of Partition Wizard (last entry on the page). That is anyhow a very useful program to have around. Just burn it to CD and run it from CD (change the BIOS boot sequence).
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