Need to reformat xp drive after Windows 7 install.

[Jdimstr333]

I just got windows 7 ultimate 64 bit last week. Everything went swell. I installed 7 and put all my stuff on. I was living the life in windows 7. It is the best OS out there, really it is.

Anyway, what I'm asking is, do you guys know of anyway of deleting my partition of xp on my 500gb and reformatting it so it doesn't conflict with the installation of Windows 7 on my terabyte? Cause I already tried reformatting the 500gb with XP while I was in windows 7 and when it was done, I was prompted to restart and it said, "ntdl missing press ctrl, alt, delete to restart". The funny thing is I went into repair and it saw my windows 7 files and everything I just couldn't boot into windows 7.

So I started over and installed xp again on the 500gb. Have nothing on there but the system files, and I have windows 7 that I am currently on and NEVER want to go back to XP again. I want to use the 500gb for storage. Does windows 7 copy or clone or modify boot files from the xp partition to install.

Please reply. Ste pointed me to this site, I am good friends with him. He comes over all the time and we both have good knowledge of computer's but we don't know why that would happen. Thanks.

 

[Lexluethar]

Doesn't make sense, i thought 7 and XP used different boot devices. And since you were able to formate the XP partition i can't imagine why this isn't working.

So just to clarify, you have two hard drives, one with 7 and one with XP or do you have one hard drive that is partitioned into two sections?

 

[Jdimstr333]

No I have windows 7 on my 1tb and windows xp on my 500gb. 2 seperate hds

 

[KSoD]

Which drive is first in the boot order in the BIOS? I can almost bet you that the XP Drive is first. When you format that drive, the boot info goes with it which is why you cant boot into Win7.

You need to make the TB drive the first boot hard drive so when you format the XP Drive and repair the Win7 boot you will not be prompted with the error that you received previously.

 

[Ste]

Im pretty sure he set the windows 7 one to boot first, but wait for him to reply.


What I want to see is if he disconnects the XP drive, then turns on the computer if W7 will boot.

It would really be strange if that worked, but after the drive is formatted the error returns.

 

[KSoD]

In that case, it would be the boot information for Win7 is not proper. It would have to be rebuilt.

 

[Jdimstr333]

Yes my 1tb is hitachi and I have it set to that one to boot first. I made sure of that when I installed windows 7 for the second time when I reformatted so now in disk management it says windows 7 c: system, boot, primary, active, formatted. I'm gonna do what Steve said which is disconnecting the 500gb and seeing if it boots.

Alright so I disconnected my 500gb where xp was installed but it still comes up to the boot selection screen. I wanna know if I can format the 500gb and if I do if I need to modify some kind of files.

 

[Ste]

^^ The last time we tried deleting the xp partition in windows 7, we restarted and it gave a ntdlr (Or one of the start up files) missing error.

What file needs to be modified to change the boot menu?

 

[KSoD]

Does Win7 boot once the drive is removed? If so that is simple to fix. If you have reinstalled all of your old information from the XP Drive then the windows.old file is not needed and can be deleted.

How to use the Disk Cleanup feature to delete the Windows.old folder after you install Windows Vista

To get rid of the XP entry and have it boot directly to Win7:

Start>Run>msconfig

Boot tab, remove the XP entry. This will take you directly to Win7 without giving you the boot selection screen. After that just use GParted to format the XP Drive. The Windows disk management will give you hassles cause it will recognize that there are Windows files on there and tell you that they are in use most likely and cant be deleted. Using GParted removes Windows from the equation and will safely format the drive and allow it to be used for storage.

 

[Ste]

Thats the thing though, when we removed the xp drive it still brought us to the boot menu selection.

And I already checked in msconfig(In W7), there is no XP entry..

Ill have him check again..