Format Primary Dual Boot Partition?
Sep 26, 2010Can i format the primary partition in a dual booted system that is xp and windows 7 where xp is the primary partiyion. And would the other os still work
View 1 RepliesCan i format the primary partition in a dual booted system that is xp and windows 7 where xp is the primary partiyion. And would the other os still work
View 1 RepliesI installed Ubuntu on a older Toshiba laptop. When I boot up it asks me to select either Windows 7 or Ubuntu. I want to get rid of the Ubuntu disk partition and give that 2.9 GB space to my primary hard drive. I go into compmgmt.msc but I can't execute any commands on that disk partition.
View 3 Replies View RelatedThe only Problem I am having now is being able to format the partition with Vista still on it. For some reason I just can't get rid of it.
View 9 Replies View RelatedI want to format my D: drive to clear some space. Thing is my D: used to be my C: drive under XP when i was dual booting so its showing as an active primary partition and Windows 7 wont let me format it.
Ive tried deleting everything but some things are refusing to go (like the file boot which i assume is to do with dual booting).
I am on my grandparents desktop, and they recently had me dual boot Windows 7 onto their Windows XP machine, and they now no longer need XP anymore. The XP partition is listed as a System, Healthy, Active, Primary partition. The 7 partition is listed as a Boot, Active, Healthy, Logical partition. How can I delete/format the XP partition and make the Windows 7 a primary partition? I have tried by using Disk Manager, and Eauseus Partition Manager, but it won't let me convert it to primary, or format the XP partition.
View 14 Replies View RelatedI have Windows XP64 and XP 2005 installed on adjacent partitions on an 80 GB IDE hard drive. I had been accustomed to using BIOS to choose the drive and EasyBCD to choose the OS. A few days ago I was unable to boot into this drive because I kept getting the error "NTLDR missing (press Ctrl-Alt-Del)." I tried using Microsoft's BCSetup2 (I think that's what it's called) but couldn't get a floppy disk to boot.
Being that there wasn't much on this hard drive, other than the Windows OS's, I decided to reinstall the Win64 on the first partition. I find now that EasyBCD does not install on my XP64, so evidently I must have had it installed on the XP MCE partition. I'm wondering now how I can go about accessing the MCE on that other partition, or finding or remaking the boot loader.
I just bought a cheap laptop from Walmart yesterday with windows 7. I am not a fan of it so I wanted to see if I could dual boot windows xp. Luckly it is a IDE machine not sata. So I Downloaded a copy of windows xp (I have a license key for all the people who would shun me for it, it is paid for). Well when I was making a new partition to install windows xp on I set the new partition to active, rebooted and wala, my computer won't boot because I'm a bone head sometimes. I have access to another windows 7 comp that is Extremly slow and I put emphasis on Extremly
View 4 Replies View RelatedI created a new partition, and accidentally made it my primary partition (C: being my primary one and D: being by other one) now whenever I boot up I get NTLDR missing ctrl+alt+del to restart. So I downloaded the windows 7 repair files from one website and tried to fix it, but I failed and now I wanted to know is there any other way I can fix using command prompt or will I just have to reinstall windows 7.
View 4 Replies View RelatedI have a brand new Windows 7 64bit build with a clean install from an Upgrade CD and noticed in BIOS that my 1st boot device must be "Windows Boot Manager" or it asks for the CD. I only have 1 storage device (SSD) in the system and when I look under Disk Management in windows, it shows a 100MB "EFI System Partition" in addition to the primary partition (which is labeled "Boot, Crash Dump, and Primary Partition" - so it seems to have the boot files on it).
My components are:
Intel i5 3570K
Gigabyte Z77-DS3H mainboard
16GB Crucial Ballistix
Intel 520 180GB SSD
LG BD optical drive
GTX 560ti
As I only have the one non-optical storage device I did not set any partition parameters at install. I Attempted to do a Startup Repair with the windows disc to maybe try and delete the EFI partition and got the "... System Recovery Options is incompatible with the version you are trying to repair" error. Not sure what that is. If Disk Management shows a healthy partition with "Boot" listed as being contained, why can I not select the SSD as boot device #1? I can boot perfectly fine with the Windows Boot Manager listed as boot device #1 and the SSD as #2, however it's not ideal.
I'm a long-time reader but new poster. I am currently running Windows 7. I want to install Windows XP onto another disc and have a dual-boot setup. I keep Windows 7 up to date and secure, but for the XP partition, I would rather not have antivirus running or even installed, in order to limit background processes. I will not be logging into any place or making any credit card purchases when booted into Windows XP. It will just be used for surfing, games, etc. Further, if and when XP becomes compromised or buggy, I will simply overwrite the partition with a backup image.
If I use Bitlocker to lock down the Windows 7 partition (with the encryption key on a thumb drive) and boot into Windows XP, am I correct in thinking the XP installation see or can't access the Windows 7 partition? If XP gets compromised, can a virus access or write to the Windows 7 partition?
Is there any other reason why this would not be secure? Can a virus write to the BIOS?
I had my friend Dell Laptop. He want me to create a two extra partitions in existing primary partition which is C:The HDD is 1TB in size.One hour ago I had used Dell data backup program and created recovery discs and then formatted the Laptop to factory default. I thought before formatting it will give me options to create a partitions but it did not had any option.
View 6 Replies View Relatedbasically a bad partition will not allow me to wipe the computer clean, boot XP from the drive or add/change bios screen...i don't have tje kind of cash to buy or pay for repairs. what can i do?
View 1 Replies View RelatedI have two questions:
I am running Windows 7 dualbooted with WinXP, everything works fine. I want to get rid of the XP partition, and keep the Windows 7 one only, but there is a problem. THe partition on which XP is installed is set as system and active. I've googled around but I've found no easy solutions to this. Any ideas on how to do this without reinstalling the OS?
My second question would be about the Windows 7 update: I installed the 7100 build, when it got released, but as I saw now, the latest builds are like 7200+. Are the changes updated on my build somehow, or I would have to reinstall to have the new build?
I have a desktop that I installed Windows Server 2008 Web Edition on, and then later added Windows 7 Pro on a separate physical drive.
Server 2008 is C:
Windows 7 is Z:
I used bcdedit to delete the boot entry for Server 2008, and now I'd like to remove the install of Server 2008 and reformat the drive. However, I am not able to delete the volume or format the c drive.
This tutorial describes how to install Windows XP and Windows 7 on the same partition (first tutorial for one partition written).The short concept: Install XP twice and have 7 replace the first installation.Need more testers to confirm it works for everyone and the instructions are clear enough.Requirements: Both Installation discsA Windows XP LiveCD (might work with other OS, but no guarantees)EasyBCD.Install Windows XP normally if you're not already running it.Don't bother installing any drivers or software on it.Start another installation of Windows XP. Choose the same hard drive and leave it unchanged without formatting. When it asks you what to do then choose to install in a different directory "C:Windows.xp".Finish installing that one and only the necessary drivers.afterwards.Install Windows 7 on C: over the regular C:windows. A warning will tell you that it will move the old files to "Windows.old" directory. The good thing is it doesn't touch the Windows.xp directory.Install and run EasyBCD. Go to "Add/Remove Entries" and add an entry of "Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3" type and a name of your choice. (as shown in the attached image)Don't forget the "Save" button.You may also want to adjust the loader timeout from "Change Settings".In C: you will find a (hidden) file "boot.saved". Open it, remove the entry to the "WINDOWS" directory and make the "WINDOWS.XP" your default one (if it's not) and save as boot.ini".Restart and boot from the Windows XP LiveCD (which you should have burned and tested on CD or DVD before starting).Open the Command Prompt (Run "cmd") and enter the following lines in order
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I installed Win7 on the same Partition as WinXP. I was in a hurry and forgot totally to partition the HD before I installed, was doing 100 things on the side during the Installation, and noticed my mistake only after the install was complete. Is there any way I can do a Multi boot for those two OS now? The WinXP folder has been renamed to Windows.old, and even with EasyBCD there's no way I can get the Comp to boot into WinXP.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI built this machine using a caviar green HD and loaded Windows 7 64. It seemed pretty slow, so soon after I added a 128GB SSD and loaded Win 7 64. On start up I got the dual boot option and would just select the SSD as the main OS drive.I got tired of the dual boot option and foolishly formatted the OS partition on the Caviar.I has assumed with on OS on the caviar it would default to the SSD. Dumb me.I can rectify this with out reloading Win on the SSD. I finally got all my applications set up right.
View 5 Replies View RelatedI have a dual-boot of Windows 7 32-bit and 64-bit on separate partitions. I want to replace the Windows 7 32-bit partition with Windows XP and keep the Windows 7 64-bit partition. What's the easiest way to do this?
View 4 Replies View RelatedIn a dual boot system with 2 hard drives, one for Vista and one for Win 7, do both OS partitions need to be "Active & Boot & System"?
View 7 Replies View RelatedI'm currently running Windows 7 and I'm trying to partition my hard drive so I can dual boot Mac os x Leopard. I have 133 GB free on my 230 GB internal hard drive, but when I partition the drive the computer will only let me open about 5 GB of space. I have defragged the drive and nothing changed.
I am new to dual booting and I am really only doing this as an experiment. If anyone can give me any advice as to how I can partition more space or how much is needed I would be very grateful.
I installed DOS into 2GB FAT 16, then installed Windows 7 Ultimate expecting Windows 7 to install itself in a partition with a drive letter other than C (just as XP had done in a previous dual-boot setting with DOS) But no, Windows 7 has hijacked the C drive letter for itself. How can I stop Windows 7 from "stealing" from DOS, the drive letter C, for itself?
View 5 Replies View RelatedI've just installed Windows 7 64-bit on my desktop PC as it worked so well for the past month on my laptop I shrunk my Vista 64 partition and installed Win 7 x64 build 7000 on the new partition. All went smooth and well!
As I wanted to transfer some files and settings from my Vista install to my new Windows 7 I assigned a drive letter to my hidden Vista drive in the "Disk Management" utility and went on with my business. Now, as I'm done I'd like to hide my Vista partition again but I can't get it to work
When I select my Vista partition and select the "Change Drive Letter and Paths" and then press the "Remove" button I get the following error box:
"Windows cannot remove the drive letter of your volume. This may happen if your volume is a system or boot volume, or has page files."
My Vista volume is the first volume of the physical drive, the boot files is there but I don't have any page file on it. How come this drive could be hidden and revealed in the first place but not hidden again?
I made a dual boot system about a month and a half ago and I now no longer have need of Windows XP. Windows 7 is my primary OS, so how do I go about removing the XP partition?
View 6 Replies View RelatedHope someone here can point me in the right direction. I currently have a dual boot machine. Win7 and Vista. I bought the machine with Vista and shortly after 7 came out. So I installed 7 and never looked back at Vista. I want to delete the Vista partition so I can regain space on the drive but it wont let me. It's an active primary partition. Even though I am logged into 7 it says that I can't delete a primary partition.
View 2 Replies View RelatedI would like to make my PC dual-boot with Windows 7 Home Premium 64bit version & Linux Ubuntu. I know about Wubi to install Ubuntu within Windows, But would like more space than the 30gb limit that Wubi uses. How do I create an partition with Windows that can be used for a dual-boot. doctorwhovian11-24144041650249291689021989539000 has chosen the best answer to his/her question. Click here to view the answer that was selected.
View 5 Replies View RelatedI'm wanting to install Windows 7 as a dual boot alongside my existing XP set up and have been trying to follow the excellent guide at Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP
But I'm stuck at resizing the existing partition as described at Partition or Volume - Shrink
I get as far as the command prompt and selecting the drive, but as soon as I type "shrink querymax" or "shrink desired=15360" or even just "shrink" I get the message
"Diskpart has encountered an error: This service cannot be started in safe mode"
Now I can't see any way of getting a command prompt WITHOUT starting in safe mode.
I have read that using a computer specifically for financial transactions with known and trusted entities (such as a bank) is a good way to reduce (though not eliminate) the risk of your accounts being hacked by reducing the likelihood of inadvertently installing a malware, spyware, or virus by reducing internet sites visited. Assuming this is correct, I was wondering about dual booting one computer with two physical hard drives (each with its own OS) versus one hard drive with two partitions. I figure the former would be "more secure" since one drive would be isolated from any unwanted programs. However, since they shared a few things (motherboard and such), is this set up as "secure" as having two computers? If so, how does one go about setting up a dual boot with two separate hard drives of the same operating system using one computer?
View 5 Replies View RelatedI am having a problem that seems more like a Win XP problem, but since its part of my migration to Windows 7 and many people these days may be trying the same.
As I said, I am in the progress of migrating to Windows 7. As a transient solution until I have transferred and re-installed everything under Windows 7 I want to have a dual boot capability, i.e. I bought me a larger HD, created two partitions on it, installed Windows 7 on the first partition, and then I used a disk-imager (Acronis Disk Director) to copy my entire old XP disk 1:1 to the second partition of the new HD. I then set things up so I can choose between the two partitions using the Windows 7 boot manager. After some fiddling the choosing and booting in principle works fine.
BUT, when I try to start WinXP, I have the very strange effect, that the system at first boots and starts WinXP up fine up to the point where it presents the login screen. When I then enter my name and password my credentials at first seem to be accepted, i.e. I get a "Loading your settings..." dialog but to my dismay only seconds later that dialog always turns into "Logging off..." (???!@#@$&!) at which point the system hangs for some long period. If I wait long enough (~5 minutes) it eventually returns to the login screen again. I also tried to login as Administator but that failed as well (the error message mumbled something about no domain server to verify my id which is complete nonsense, since my XP system was never part of any domain, so there is no server in the world that could verify anything here!).
Any idea what could cause this and why can't I not log into that copied/moved 1:1 Window XP installation? Any hints/suggestions/pointers would be highly welcome!
I have a small query about this whole partitioning business. I'm trying to set up a partition so I can dual-boot Windows 7 and Ubuntu.
My computer came with a Dell Recovery partition and an OEM partition as well as the main C: drive, which are all primaries. I've created a new logical drive, which I've called Z:, with the idea being to install the Linux OS in that chunk of the drive.
My first question: First up, I've formatted it as "exFAT" - is this the same as FAT32?
Next question: can I divide this 'Z' into smaller chunks with different formats, or do they all have to be the same format? I was hoping to be able to format a small bit of the drive into a Linux file-system so that both OSs can be kept entirely separate from each other, but leave the bulk of it as FAT so that I can see my files with both OSs. If this is not possible, what would be the best way to achieve the desired result?
My boot drive is a 120Gb Samsung spinpoint, previously one whole partition containing XP. This XP wasnt a clean install, it was an upgrade to Windows 98 I think, and this may be the problem. I have a number of other hard disks, 1 PATA and 2 SATA, which I am using for video editing stuff.
I downloaded GParted, shrunk the XP partition to 76Gb and created a new 35Gb partition for Windows 7. A bit small, but I figured once everything was tested out, I could grow out the Windows 7 partition.
This was successful, and I inserted the Windows 7 disk...selected custom install, and installed to my newly created partition.
Windows 7 did its reboots and I filled in the usual bunff to create basic accounts, etc.
Then I rebooted, and was a bit surprised I did not get the dual-boot menu, it went straight into Windows 7. Using F5 and F8 did not provide any further options, specifically the 'Previous version of Windows' one.
Going into Windows 7 Disk manager, i could see the partition was still there. I read other posts of what Windows 7 does (belately) and yes, it had 'hidden' the XP partition. I gave it a drive letter (D, but Windows 7 saw it as an empty disk!
I downloaded EasyBCD, and it showed only one entry in the bootloader. I tried to add a new entry, using type:"Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3", but the Drive was greyed out; if I selected "Vista/Longhorn" I could then change the drive to D: and then change type back to XP (odd). I then clicked 'Add Entry', but it came back with an error message "EasyBCD could not locate a copy of NTLDR on your hard drive. Please download a copy of NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from Htpp://(blah blah) and copy them to the drive D: in order for your newly-created entry to work.".
Does this mean my XP partition is truly trashed? Is there a way to get back my XP partition?
I am thinking of maybe inserting the XP disk and repairing, maybe it will detect XP and fix it, but if it will blow away both my installations, I might not bother.
Last resort is to use File Scavenger on the dead partition, but when I checked it out in GParted again just now, it said that 3Gb out of the 76Gb had data, could it be that Windows 7 has just not recognised my original XP partition as an XP partition, thought it was its configuration partition, and just overwrote stuff?
I have a dual boot scenario currently on an Intel 80GB SSD, with one partition as XP Pro, and the other is Windows 7, split 20GB(XP)/50GB(7).
The XP partition needs to be upgraded to Windows 7 for my wife's work remote access, and it will also include Office 2010 Pro.
Will I run into any issues dual booting into the existing Windows 7 partition after the upgrade, or should I just reinstall our personal Windows 7 OS after the upgrade is installed?
I have other hard drives to use as well if space becomes an issue, but I'd like to keep the existing Windows 7 install without starting from scratch.