Question trying to remove dual boot Vista & Win 7 with EasyBCD

FreddyL

Member
Hello,

I'm in the process of trying to remove an old vista partition from a dual boot Vista - Win 7 system

I have 2 physical disks but both Vista and Win 7 OS are on the same disk (1). Other disk is used for data.
So my current set-up is:

Disk 1: VistaOS (E) Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)
Disk 1: New Volume (C) Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
Disk 1: Data (F) Healthy Logical Drive
Disk 2: (D) Healthy (Primary Partition)
Disk 2: (G) Healthy (Primary Partition)

Also see screenshot of my Disk Management Screen (attached)

Historically Vista was my first OS. I installed Win 7 later together with a dual boot

Here is what i have done so far in an attempt to remove Vista:

0. Checked and verified that Vista was marked as 'system' in Disk Management.
1. Made Win 7 my default system (was like that but checked with EasyBCD > Edit Boot menu > Windows 7 default Yes (checked)
2. Moved the bootloader files to my Win 7 partition (EasyBCD > BCD Backup/Repair > Change boot drive + Perform Action > New Boot Drive = C:\
Operation went OK. Restarted my PC and it came up again without any problems
3. Brought up Disk Management again and saw that VistaOS (E) is still listed as 'system' after moving the bootloader to C:\. Is this normal?
4. Assuming this was OK, I tried to format (quick format) my old Vista Partition (E) but the system would not let me do so.

Questions:
- What did i do wrong and/or what is still to be done to finish the job: format the old Vista partition (E) and remove the dual boot?
If another action is to be take with EasyBCD can you clearly indicate the steps to take and selections to make?
- Once Vista is formatted, will i still need to take action removing the dual boot or will this be done automatically by formatting Vista?

Thanks a lot in advance for your help and feedback.

FreddyL
 

Attachments

  • Disk Mgmt Capture.jpg
    Disk Mgmt Capture.jpg
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Did you do the change from Vista ?
The only reason I can think why moving the boot to C would result in it staying put, is if it were already C, i.e Vista was booted as C. The letters in EasyBCD are only translations of the BCD UIDs as the running system sees those letters. You must point it to the partition letter of the target, as seen by the current system.
Are you using the latest version of Easy ?
 
HI Terry,

Thanks for your reply!

To aswer your questions: I did the change from Win 7 with EasyBCD 2.1.0.146.
But I guess you are right, i probably selected the wrong target drive letter (C in his case).
My reasoning was - looking at the partition map in Disk Management - that Win 7 would be 'New Volume' which holds drive letter C (when booted from Win 7).
I'm not an expert in computer systems but now i do recall now that drive letters change when switching OS - right?
After reading your reply - I looked what OS was installed on which drive and found following entries when i brought up the 'View Settings' panel in EasyBCD. It says:

Entry #1:
Name Windows 7
BCD ID: (current)
Drive: C:\

Entry #2:
Name: Microsoft Windows Vista
BCD ID: (1003&94f-0ba8-11dd-9dce-af2d70a651e)
Drive: E:\

(also see screenshot attached)

Confirmes your point.
So, to recap, I need to select drive letter E as target to move the bootloader to from Vista to Win 7 - correct?
I will await your feedback before i do so.

Still one more question:
After i moved the bootloader to Win 7, can i simply go on and format my old Vista partition?
Will that get rid of the dual boot program at start-up, or do i have to take extra steps to do that?

Thanks so much for your help!

FreddyL
 

Attachments

  • EasyBCD Settings Screenshot.jpg
    EasyBCD Settings Screenshot.jpg
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No, from W7 the target is W7 (C).
Try it again.
If you're running in Vista, then the target should be whatever letter Vista calls W7
 
HI Terry,

Tried it again from Vista and now it worked!
Under Vista I was able to move the bootloader to W7 which was called New Volume (I)
Once done i could format the old Vista partition.
To get rid of the dual boot screen at startup i went into msgconfig - boot tab and deleted the Vista entry
Now my W7 comes up without the dual boot screen.

Thanks for your help.

FreddyL
 
I have a similar but different setup from which I want to remove two of three operating systems. I have Vista, W7 and W8 on one drive and Data on a second one. If I open W8 and using disk management delete the partitions for Vista and W7, and then using Easy BCD 2.2 "write MBR" with the "Install the Windows Vista/7bootloader to the MBR" selected, will W8 be bootable?
 
You don't need to touch the MBR.
Just use "edit boot menu" and remove any entries you don't want/need.
 
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