Please help me with the correct order and steps: Reverting to XP from W7

Z

zstopa

Member
Greetings,

I love w7 but have to go back to xp for a certain laptop that has a program that will only work with xp (tried everything, even learned vmware ....no dice)

Anyways, here is the current situation:

I shrunk my c partition (that had w7 on it) to open up some space for xp. Installed xp and now computer only boots to xp, which is fine...but I need to delete my old w7 partition and reclaim the space. I've tried this before and always end up with tons of errors.

After my xp install, C drive is now "system reserved" - the boot secotrs for w7 I believe?, D drive is now my old w7 install, and F drive is where my live xp install is located.

I can't just delete D and and it to my F partition..I'll get massive boot errors...do I have to do something in EasyBCD first then use a program such as partition magic to delete D and expand F? I've obviously been missing a step here or there. What about the "system reserved" C partition that is only 100mb?

Any and all help greatly appreciated!
 
zstopa said:
Greetings,

I love w7 but have to go back to xp for a certain laptop that has a program that will only work with xp (tried everything, even learned vmware ....no dice)
Click to expand...
You could always dual-boot (with the help of a special utility here called EasyBCD.... Many of us here have successfully dual-booted our computers, and will be happy to show you a few pointers, if you're interested.
Anyways, here is the current situation:

I shrunk my c partition (that had w7 on it) to open up some space for xp. Installed xp and now computer only boots to xp, which is fine...but I need to delete my old w7 partition and reclaim the space. I've tried this before and always end up with tons of errors.
Click to expand...
Well, if you don't want to dual-boot, you'll have to make sure that W7's partition isn't marked with the "system" flag in Disk Management. If it is, it means it contains the boot files of both systems, and so you wont be able to delete it without destroying your XP boot.
After my xp install, C drive is now "system reserved" - the boot secotrs for w7 I believe?, D drive is now my old w7 install, and F drive is where my live xp install is located.
Click to expand...
Ahh...the hidden 100 MB "system" partition which W7 uses. Ok, so all you got to do to is use the "Change the Boot Drive" function in EasyBCD, which I just gave you a link to, then you should see that the "system" flag in Disk Management has now moved to whatever partition you changed it to (which should have been F, the XP partition).
Then you can reboot to verify that XP is still booting. If it is, you can now delete the W7 partition. If not, then W7 should now boot, and you should be able to use another EasyBCD function "Uninstall the Vista/7 bootloader" which basically reinstates the XP MBR/PBR, so XP once more is in charge of the boot. You will then be able to safely delete W7's partition.
 
thnak you! i'm sorry, but where exactly is the "Change the Boot Drive" function" in EasyBCD? I don't seem to see it.

I did the uninstall the vista bootloader, and xp boots fine but i still need to delete c and d ("system" and w7 respectively)

c and d are still both showing as primary drives.
 
You don't need to "change boot drive" (it's on the BCD Install/repair page), because you've already uninstalled the W7 boot loader (change boot.... copies the BCD, which no longer exists).
If XP is now "active", it should allow you to format both the other partitions. (You can't accidentally delete the boot files as long as you're using Disk Management and not a third party app. Windows won't let you, the option will be "greyed")
 
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