Home › News › TechSpot
Removing your Windows 7 installation, partition (updated)
Because we originally developed this guide when Microsoft was releasing Windows 7 betas and release candidates, we aim at removing those versions in favor of the now nearly available final version. It should be mentioned however that you could potentially follow the same guidelines as explained below to remove your older XP or Vista installations (while in a dual boot configuration) in favor of Windows 7 Final.

If you recall, in the dual boot guide we looked at two separate (yet, fundamentally identical) approaches to creating a new partition with Windows XP or Vista and we intend to do the same here.
Read the complete how-to guide.
User Comments (8)
Post a comment|
Guest
on October 19, 2009 10:35 AM |
How can one remove XP partition (which is Drive C I need my 7 partition stay the only partition, and be identified as "C:". |
|
poertner_1274
on October 19, 2009 12:14 PM |
Why does it have to be identified as C? My parents computer has their installed OS on drive I: This does not present any issues whatsoever. You might just have to make sure your Master Boot Record directs you to the correct location for 7. |
|
Per Hansson
on October 19, 2009 12:54 PM |
I had a different scenario, I had Win7 RC installed to a 2TB RAID5 volume, I do not have space to backup all that is on this volume (I only backup the important stuff) So to go around the option of deleting the partition I used my own approach of simply deleteing the files, "simply" is putting it lightly though It goes without saying that these commands must be run from the OS you do not intend to delete, in my case that is in Windows XP x64 deleting Windows 7 RC Windows7 bootloader is on my C: drive, Windows7 is on my D: drive, keep this in mind for the commands below and modify for your own system! From the Vista or Win7 CD find the program bootsect.exe, run it with this command; bootsect.exe /nt52 c: This replaces your bootloader with that of Windows XP Now to delete the bootfiles do; takeown /r /f c:\boot cacls c:\boot /T /G Administrator:F After this you should be able to delete the folder "boot" in explorer, now do the same for the other Windows folders, like; D:\Windows D:\Users D:\Program Files D:\Program Files (x86) On the next reboot you should hopefully get the Windows XP bootloader directly, and not even the choice of starting Windows7 Of course doing the above with no backups means you must really know what you are doing, one wrong move and you could loose all your data! |
|
Guest
on October 19, 2009 5:29 PM |
>How can one remove XP partition (which is Drive C and remain ONLY with windows 7 partition (say it is called "F:")? >I need my 7 partition stay the only partition, and be identified as "C:". Dangerous but if you insist... you will need to know about MountedDevices in the registry (...\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINGE\SYSTEM\MountedDevices ).. also how to make the w7 partition boot-able with BCD ... also check out EasyBCD |
|
Guest
on October 20, 2009 8:26 AM |
10x all! Forgot to mention that I only have 1 physical HD. From Disks Management I can see that my 7 partition is labeled as: Boot, Primary Partition. My XP partition is labeled: System, Active, Primary Partition. Can't I just delete the XP partition? @poertner_1274: I like it more as "C". can't explain. I will live without that. |
|
Guest
on March 2, 2010 8:22 PM |
Thank you! Great instructions. Extremely easy to follow. |
|
Guest
on May 1, 2010 6:01 PM |
Thank you very much wonderful guidance and advice. You can write / explain very clearly. Please continue to write to help most of the people in the world. Thank you. God bless you. Maruna - London |
|
Guest
on September 28, 2010 11:18 AM |
Just used this guide as machine was full and struggling. You guys are life savers, thought I was going to have to format and start again. Thanks very much Gary |
Most Popular
| Trending | Featured |
-
iOS 5.1.1 untethered jailbreak tool released, supports 4S, iPad 3
-
After five days, Facebook ranks as worst IPO flop of the decade
-
Rumor: Windows 8 RC will launch June 1, will ship with Adobe Flash
-
Rumor: AMD "Piledriver" FX CPU production to begin Q3 2012
-
Is Apple's USB wall adapter really worth $29?
Editors' Tablet Picks
Subscribe to TechSpot
Get free exclusive content, learn about new features and tech breaking news.