Windows 7 Dual Boot Migration Question

ACraigL

New Member
Hi,

I have Vista 64 on C: and Windows 7 RTM on F: running simultaneously. I've got Win7 to the point where I can abandon Vista entirely. I was wondering if I could image the Win7 F: drive -- I use Acronis TrueImage -- and replace it onto C: eliminating the Vista instance for the Win7, then reclaiming the F: drive space for other use.

I guess my concern is if it will boot and/or run properly if the drive letter changes. Will I be required to reinstall just to get it to C:?

Thanks for any advice!
 
Hi,

I have Vista 64 on C: and Windows 7 RTM on F: running simultaneously. I've got Win7 to the point where I can abandon Vista entirely. I was wondering if I could image the Win7 F: drive -- I use Acronis TrueImage -- and replace it onto C: eliminating the Vista instance for the Win7, then reclaiming the F: drive space for other use.

I guess my concern is if it will boot and/or run properly if the drive letter changes. Will I be required to reinstall just to get it to C:?

Thanks for any advice!

Is C: and F: on the same harddrive as partitions or C: & F: two total different hdd's?
 
Is C: and F: on the same harddrive as partitions or C: & F: two total different hdd's?

1 drive, 2 partitions. There is actually a 3rd partition, D:, that contains all my files and media. When I installed the Win7 beta, I shrunk the D: partition and created the F: for Win7. Now that I'm happy with the RTM, I want to do the opposite -- replace the contents of C with F, remove F and grow D back to it's full size.
 
1 drive, 2 partitions. There is actually a 3rd partition, D:, that contains all my files and media. When I installed the Win7 beta, I shrunk the D: partition and created the F: for Win7. Now that I'm happy with the RTM, I want to do the opposite -- replace the contents of C with F, remove F and grow D back to it's full size.

I am not sure, but before anything always Backup your personal Data, Documents etc before proceeding.
Now, if you like to try I am not sure but you may try.
Download Gparted.
GParted -- Welcome
burn it to a disk or use tutorial for usb stick,
Set cd drive or usb drive for first boot option and hdd for second in bios,
insert the gpart disk or usb w/e you created,
Boot into gparted, Once in gparted you will now see all your partitions "if you only have the one hdd that were talking about".
Delete the C: partition, it will become unallocated.
Grab F: in gparted and drag it all the way to the left of D:.
Apply, it might take a bit depending how many gigs.

Edit:
After all proceedings , when you goto boot up it will ask for disk check, do not bypass it, let it do the disk check.
Edit:
After all is well, go back into gparted and expand D: to the right "resize"
 
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Thanks -- I actually used GParted to create the paritions in the first place. That basically sums up what I wanted to do, but thought someone had some experience and could save me some time :).

I probably would not have done it in 2 steps, so that for that as well. Experimentaiton awaits!
 
Your Welcome.
I have been using gparted for many years, It been a while and cannot remember if I physically grabbed 3rd partition or 4th and moved it to the front, two year's ago or so.
 
I suspect the System is the first partition containing Vista,.

Check in Disk Management. If so, it contains the boot critical files.

You should be fine to image the second partition and restore that to the first ( provided it is big enough - if not, shrink the source partition as much as you can before imaging it )- you would need to use the imaging app boot disc. to do the restore.

Make sure you mark the restored partition Active - I imagine you have that option with your imaging app.

You will not be able to boot straight in - you need to boot the 7 dvd and run startup repair 3 times.
 
BTW epk's suggestion is also valid - you would still need to run startup repair 3 times afterwards.

It will probably take a lot longer , though, especially if you have already created the image.

If you choose the image restore method - you will have 2 windows 7 installations and the choice to boot into either.

Boot into the one you wish to keep - go to msconfig and under the Boot Tab - delete the entry you no longer want. ( Make sure it is the right one - you need to make the one you to keep the Default )

In Disk Management you can delete the "old" installation.
 
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SIW -- thank you. Yes the C: parition is the system. So rather than delete it, I will restore to it, then trash the current Win 7 F: partition. Will I see 2 Win7s in the windows dual-boot/startup manager after this?

Why 3x for statup repair? Just curious.
 
Yes about the boot menu - see my previous post ( must have crossed posts).

Startup repair carries out one repair function at a time.

You need to create the Boot folder ( containing bcd) , create bootmgr, make the correct bcd entries.

You should also be able to select the drive letter you want for the restored partition - there will be an option for that during the image restore. ( Use the image app. boot disc to do the restore)
 
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Help - now I'm stuck!

Yes about the boot menu - see my previous post ( must have crossed posts).

Startup repair carries out one repair function at a time.

You need to create the Boot folder ( containing bcd) , create bootmgr, make the correct bcd entries.

You should also be able to select the drive letter you want for the restored partition - there will be an option for that during the image restore. ( Use the image app. boot disc to do the restore)

Unoftunately, this did not go according to plan.

I did as discussed --- restored the F: partition to C: as active, ran the startup repair 3x, and the system booted fine into the new C: (Win7) parition. Both boot configs got marked as '(recovered)' in MSCONFIG -- I assume this is normal, and all apps and everything else seemed to do fine.

The trouble started once I tried to delete the old F: partition. I booted into the C: (previously had Vista) and in disk manager, I deleted F: (original win7 install). At that point, my desktop icons disappeared, and none of the control panels or snap-ins worked any longer. I had no choice but to reboot, given that I could not use windows.

Once I rebooted, it said 'preparing desktop' (a bad sign) and then it loaded a plain blue desktop (no taskbar) and just above where the clock would be, it said "This copy of windows is not genune." Crap. I tried running starup repair again, but it complained asking if I recently attached a media player or other external device and restart, but every time I tried I got the same message.

I could not find any way around that, so I did a complete image restore (Acronis Drive Image 11). What is increasingly concerning is that once the restore completed, I am able to boot into C: (Vista) but when I try to boot into F: (Windows 7), I get the same "not genuine" error.

How can this be happening with a complete system/image restore? I need some help as I'm not sure how to repair windows 7 at this point.
 
To complete the drama loop, here's where I am now...

I did another restore from F: to C: and once again had a working Win7 on C: The only problem is that all software, including the user profiles still referenced F: as the source. So even though booting to Win7 from C: worked, all the pointers were still to F: No amount of registry tweaking could get me anything close to what I wanted. This also explains why killing the F: partition blew everything up for me. I also found that the computer was far less responsive, as it had to go digging on a separate partition at the same time is was loading the OS.

Ultimately, I reinstalled the OS and all my apps. Fortunately, all my docs on are on a 3rd partion, so I was not at risk of losing anything vital (plus I have several Acronis backups and cloud backup as well).

Lessons learned: Drive letter doesn't (shouldn't) matter. A better (or at least faster) solution would have been to restore to the C: partition, but rename to F:, thus keeping all the pointers on the same boot drive. That being said, it's much cleaner to have reinstalled everything. I certainly would have saved time as I burned 2x as much trying to simply make what I had work, plus several lengthy restore operations, etc.
 
Thanks for the update Acraig,

At least you got everything working to your satisfaction at last.
 
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