Windows 7 Win 7 & Vista dual boot problem.

[jerryb]

Recently shrunk my Vista partition on my laptop to created a new partition for a Win 7 install. All is working great, able to choose either partition on start up with no problems.

Now here's where my problems lie:

I want to get rid of my original Vista partition (C and add the free space to my Win 7 partition (D, however when I set my Win 7 partition (D to active in Win 7 disk management and reboot I get a NTLDR error. I must then load the gpart cd and set my Vista partition as boot to be able to either OSs, again.

Let me know if there's any other info you may need, I'll be sitting here desperately hiting the reload button every 30 sec.

Any help will be greatly apprciated.

Jerry

 

[reghakr]

Hello and Welcome to The Windows 7 forums,

Check control Panel > Administrative Tools, Computer Management , click Disk management and see what partition is labeled as System, boot, active, crash dump

What is the size of Your C: drive at the moment?

 

[jerryb]

Thanks for the quick reply!

Sorry got my partitions backwards:

C: (win 7) 29 GB 7 free - boot, pagefile, crash dump & primary partition
D: (Vista) 84 GB 37 free - System, active, primary partition

Also not sure how these drive letter got reversed, C: was the original partition of vista

 

[reghakr]

You might want to try this free partition Manager:

Paragon Partition Manager Express 9.0
Paragon Partition Manager Express - Free software downloads and reviews - CNET Download.com

I'm not sure what the limitations are with the Express package, but it still may be worth a try.

Have your Windows 7 ISO in the drive, if the partition is deleted, the computer will not boot..

Be sure to do a :"lean" install, rather than the upgrade route.

 

[jerryb]

Thanks for the info, i will give it a shot

 

[davehc]

Boot up with the Windows 7 DVD as you would during installation, but click on Repair your Computer in the lower left hand corner and choose Startup Repair. Usually setup will detect you have an error before you even click on Startup Repair and automatically fix it for you.
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You may need to do it twice. You should then find you can remove the vista OS.

You could also download and use the free program "EasyBcd" and rewrite the bootmanage/MBR, after selecting Windows 7 as your default OS.