Remove Dual Boot Partition

Having upgraded from Vista to W7 I now have 2 partitions and neither OS will
allow me to delete or format the vista partition. The help function in 7
says I should be able to format the drive! How can I free up some
space - eventually I want to automatically boot into W7 but keep all my user
files on the other partition?

Mervyn Thomas wrote:
Having upgraded from Vista to W7 I now have 2 partitions and neither OS will
allow me to delete or format the vista partition. The help function in 7
says I should be able to format the drive! How can I free up some
space - eventually I want to automatically boot into W7 but keep all my user
files on the other partition?




You cannot format or delete your primary partition
as that's where the 'boot' files are kept...

however you can delete the un-needed folders there

you may need to take owenership

Hi, Mervyn.

Short explanation: Boot into Win7 and Delete D:\Windows.

Longer explanation...

NO operating system will obey your command to delete ITS OWN Boot Folder
(\Windows). Or the System Volume, which is where every reboot must begin.
Each OS has its own Boot Volume (and boot folder), but they all use the
single System Volume. See KB 314470 for the counterintuitive definitions of
these terms: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470

But Win7 will happily delete Vista's boot folder. ;) To Win7, that is
"just another folder".

In Vista, run Disk Management (diskmgmt.msc - you'll need to furnish
Administrator credentials). Look in the Status column to see which "drives"
have the System and Boot labels; there should be exactly ONE of each. Note
which drive has each status. In the Graphical View at the bottom of the
screen, note carefully which partition on which HDD those labels apply to.

Reboot into Win7 and run Disk Management again and look at the status
column. The labels should have shifted. The Boot label should now be on
the partition that holds Win7's \Windows folder. But the System label
should still be on the first partition on the first HDD - even though its
drive letter may not be the same as it was in Vista.

When Win7 is installed by booting from its DVD, Setup assigns the letter C:
to Win7's own Boot Volume, even if that is the second partition on the first
HDD. Then it has to change the former C: to another letter, usually D:.
So, in Win7's Disk Management, you probably see the Boot label on C: (2nd
partition) and System on D: (1st partition). In Vista, both status labels
probably are on C:, the first partition. Since "drive" letters can shift
with each reboot into another OS, you should always give each partition a
name (in Properties), which will be written to the HDD and will be the same
no matter which OS is running; that cuts down on a lot of confusion. So you
probably now have both C:\Windows and D:\Windows in both OSes, but the
folders they refer to in Win7 is reversed from the letters Vista uses.

So just boot into Win7 and delete D:\Windows. (Don't worry; Win7 will not
delete its own Boot Folder, so if you try to delete C:\Windows, you'll get a
refusal and an error message.) But don't try it from inside Vista. And
don't try to reformat D: (the System Volume)! Both Vista and Win7 will
refuse to do it because that would wipe out both WinXP's Boot Folder AND the
startup files needed to boot the computer!

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Mervyn Thomas" wrote in message
...
Having upgraded from Vista to W7 I now have 2 partitions and neither OS
will allow me to delete or format the vista partition. The help function
in 7 says I should be able to format the drive! How can I free up some
space - eventually I want to automatically boot into W7 but keep all my
user files on the other partition?