I just created a new partition and installed Win 7 on it and I like it. Is there a way I can delete the old partition that has Vista on it? When I made the new partition I only used about 40GB of hard drive space, just enough to test out Win 7 and a few programs. After testing Win 7 I've found out that I really like it and would like to just get rid of the older Vista partition and use the Win 7 with all the hard drive space that is available on my PC. Is this possible or do I need to delete all the partitions and do a fresh install? I would really appreciate any help with this issue. Thanks in advance.
You could delete the unneeded files and shrink the partition...but you can't just delete it; the computer still boots from it.
You could delete vista partition, and like KillerBug said the computer would still try to boot from it. but if you have the disc you installed win7 with it has repair options Check method 2 here... http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/668-system-recovery-options.html shows how to get at startup repair described here http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html
OK, Just so I have this right, I can do this by deleting the Vista volume/partition and than just run the Win 7 Recovery/Repair from the Win 7 disc? I figure I can give this a try first and if I fail, I can just format the drive and do a full install of Win 7. Right? Thank you both for your help with this.
With the automated repair from Win7 disc it should work after delete of vista partition. And yes, if everything blows up, you can format the drive and do a full reinstall but you shouldnt have to. Make sure you have a backup of important files. I used google and found this... http://superuser.com/questions/4391...partition-but-its-the-active-system-partition
Well I went ahead and tried this before your last post and I failed big time...lol I ended up having to do a full install. I tried to do pretty much what the post on the link you left me did. First of all I tried to delete all the files on the vista partitioned drive and vista being vista wouldn't let me. I guess owning the pc doesn't give me enough permission to do that. lol The one thing I really hate about vista, that permission crap. Anyway, it was a lot of work but I am now on the pc running Win 7 and everything is all good. Thanks again for your help.
Glad things are working. Can I ask what method you tried to delete the vista partition? That makes it sound as if you were running vista, and tried to delete itself which wouldn't work. SHould have been running Win7 or better yet, a live boot disc like these to delete it bartsPE-- http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/ or UBCD-- http://www.ubcd4win.com/ The entire partition wouldve needed format or deleted, not just deleting the folders on the partition
Nah, I was running the Win 7 at the time and I tried to format the vista partition after deleting every file and folder I could and it wouldn't format it. It would go through all the steps and at the very end when it usually says done it said "cannot format" I even went into the Manage Drive Section and tried to shrink it and than format it and than expand the Win 7 partition and all that. It just fought me the whole way. Just when I thought I had it all set, something wouldn't do what it should have been able to do. It was very frustrating. I'm no expert either so I was going back and forth to google and reading help files ect..ect... LOL I started this around noon today Eastern Standard Time and I just finished installing Win 7 about an hour ago. LOL Oh Well. I'm just glad it's done and over with. Win 7 is much faster than Vista ever was and it's hardly using any resources compared to Vista. I'm glad I did it.
Well I had to ask, at least to make sure I wasn't feeding you bad info...You probably would have had better luck ignoring windows altogether and booting from a PE disk similar to the links I posted and using the partition manager on them but i guess thats not an issue now things are well. Post again if you have any other issues. I know a bit about win7 and integrating it into a network.
OK, will do bud. As far as I can tell you gave very good info. It was Vista and my lack of knowledge that was the reason for not being able to do it the other way. I really appreciate the help and the fast replies. Thanks again.
