Dual-Boot: Windows 7 & XP (Removing XP)

couchdweller

couchdweller

Member
Hi everyone, just installed this new software, and although this all looks very easy to use, quite straight forward, and relatively problem free, I wanted to consult more experienced users of this application before proceeding.

I've had XP on my system for a long time on an IDE harddrive, but I finally went and bought a new SATA harddrive and partitioned and installed windows 7 on it. So XP and 7 are on different partitions and separate harddrives. By default, when I installed my retail copy of Windows 7, it made a dual boot, which I no longer require.

Am I right in thinking that since Windows 7 uses its own new boot system, will i be able to delete the "Earlier Version of Windows" entry and then have a single-boot without any problems? Or is there anything i need to watch out for first?

Thanks!

~Couch
 
Check in Disk Management.
If you installed W7 and it auto-dual-booted the old XP, it has probably installed its boot files on the XP drive. (XP will be marked "system")
I take it that since you want to remove the XP BCD entry you will also be removing XP, in which case you'll need to copy the boot files across to W7 and make it "system" before you'll be able to format (or ditch) the IDE drive.
Fortunately EasyBCD automates that process for you
Changing the Boot Partition - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
If W7 is already "system", then yes, it is that easy. Just delete the XP entry from the BCD ("edit boot menu")
 
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Well you were right! My windows XP harddrive has a tag marked on it as "(System, Active, Primary Partition)". Thanks for showing me this, as i probably wouldn't have caught it! *Whew*.

I'll let you know how this process goes!

Addendum:

I just now booted off my SATA harddrive with just the Windows 7 boot option thank you Terry! I couldn't have done it without you!
 
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Lucky me! I stumbled across this after my problems started. However, I believe I did everything I needed to. I made a backup of my BCD setting and made my "C:" with WINDOWS 7 installed the boot drive. However, after rebooting, I get a blinking underscore cursor and nothing else. I tried booting my Windows 7 USB flash (PC has IDE DVD drives in it which WIN7 CD doesn't recognize) and tried to repair. If says it found issues with the boot and was going to repair it. No joy. How can I repair the BCD if I cannot access the easyBCD program? in short.... HELP!
 
Is your "C" drive in a primary partition or on a logical drive ?
Only the former can host the boot files.
If it is primary, and you successfully copied the boot files (as in post #2), did you remember to change the BIOS boot sequence (if the source and target are not on the same HDD) ?
 
GOT IT BACK! YEAH!

Somehow, my C drive 'forgot' that it was the active partition. Used EASEUS PARTITION MASTER from an IT friend of mine's USB drive and it worked!

Thanks for the quick responses to my issue. If I would have lost the pix of the kids, my wife would have killed me.

However, I'm still left with XP and WIN7 in dual boot. I'd like to dump the XP, and un-partition that drive and resize my WIN7 drive. I've read the steps on how to do this here... Convert Dual boot to single and here... Changing the Boot Partition - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki but apparently, I boogered something up. Was going to use MINITOOL PARTITION WIZARD HOME EDITION to change the partitions.

Here's my current drive setup in disk manage Drive 0 in left to right...
E:\ WINXP - Healthy, logical partition 500Gb
N:\ Documents - Healthy, primary partition 100Gb
C:\ WIN7 - Healthy, System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary 900Gb

(The system has 2 CD drives and 4 card readers which explains some of the gaps in the drive lettering... I think)

Remember, XP came on the drive first and then I then installed WIN7.

If you can give me clear STEP-BY-STEP instructions on how to do this, I'd be very VERY much in your debt.

Thanking you in advance!
 
W7 is now "system" "boot" and "active", so it is in complete control of the boot.
You can delete the XP entry from the BCD ("Edit Boot Menu") and format the XP partition whenever you want.
If you try to extend the W7 partition backwards into the space before it, you cannot do that from within W7 because it will not allow its partition start position to be moved (that breaks the boot because the BCD UID contains information about that start address).
If you do so with a third party boot manager, you will either need to do so with a W7 compatible version that can fix the BCD on the fly, or you will need to repair the BCD after the move.
Recovering the Windows Bootloader from the DVD - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
 
So it looks like the other night when I clicked the "change boot drive" to C: (which it already was - because I remember seeing that) it may have removed it from being an active partition? Is this a possible software glitch? By no was am I complaining, but I work in electronics and whenever we get new code it's us in QA - the last people who turn a product on - is where a BUG is caught.

So I may have been good to go w/o the need to click the change boot drive.

Will reply back once I try things out later today.

Thanks!
 
Change boot drive is designed to set the partition you selected as the new active partition. If it's already the boot drive, you should not be using change boot drive.

Unless I'm misunderstanding?
 
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