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From: Ryan P. on 5 Jan 2010 21:10 On 1/5/2010 7:31 PM, Barry Watzman wrote: > Re: "I'm more worried about when I decide to migrate completely to Win7. > I'm a little leery about about merging the partitions into one without > messing up the MBR." > > Be aware that Vista and Windows 7 do not use the MBR boot scheme > originally introduced with MS-DOS 2.0 and used in very OS until Vista > (e.g. through XP). Instead, both Vista and Windows 7 use the "BCD" boot > scheme (BCD = boot configuration data). It's a whole different system > for booting. > > I have XP and Windows 7 dual boot on this machine. If you do that, you > will lose system restore on both OS', and there are some other issues > (incompatibilities) as well, although they are not major. But I'm not > sure that you could ever combine the XP and 7 partitions; I think if you > wanted to truly get rid of XP, you would have to start over. That is an interesting bit of information... thanks! I learned my new thing for the day! The laptop, however, is dual boot with Vista and Win7. Does that make it less dangerous to join the partitions? I would still be leery about doing it, though, with my preferred OS on the 2nd partition, that's the one that seems more likely to be corrupted. Although, as I said, the safest option would be simply getting a new hard drive. I wouldn't mind upgrading from the 120GB this thing came with!
From: BillW50 on 5 Jan 2010 21:27 Barry Watzman wrote: > Re: "I'm more worried about when I decide to migrate completely to Win7. > I'm a little leery about about merging the partitions into one without > messing up the MBR." > > Be aware that Vista and Windows 7 do not use the MBR boot scheme > originally introduced with MS-DOS 2.0 and used in very OS until Vista > (e.g. through XP). Instead, both Vista and Windows 7 use the "BCD" boot > scheme (BCD = boot configuration data). It's a whole different system > for booting. > > I have XP and Windows 7 dual boot on this machine. If you do that, you > will lose system restore on both OS', and there are some other issues > (incompatibilities) as well, although they are not major. But I'm not > sure that you could ever combine the XP and 7 partitions; I think if you > wanted to truly get rid of XP, you would have to start over. Actually it is very easy to remove another Windows and keep Windows 7. Super Easy Method: ------------------ If you are a super chicken and say XP is on the first partition. Delete everything except: Boot (folder) boot.ini bootmgr ntdetect.com ntldr Now resize the first partition small enough to hold the little bit is left. Another Easy Method: -------------------- Use the Windows 7 install disc after you deleted the old Windows install partition. And I forget the prompts, but it will take you to repairing Windows 7 boot. Warning: If you have other OS on this drive (even XP), they will be unbootable except for Windows 7. Easy to fix if you know what you are doing though. Advanced User Method: --------------------- Use the free BCDEdit program. You can fix any MBR or BCD boot problems. You must have at least one Windows version bootable. I don't know if it will work underr BartPE CD, I think it would. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows 7 (build 7100)
From: BillW50 on 5 Jan 2010 22:11 BillW50 wrote: > Advanced User Method: > --------------------- > > Use the free BCDEdit program. You can fix any MBR or BCD boot problems. > You must have at least one Windows version bootable. I don't know if it > will work underr BartPE CD, I think it would. Oh sorry! It is called EasyBCD. -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows 7 (build 7100)
From: Cameo on 5 Jan 2010 23:24 "Ryan P." <rdeletepaque(a)wi.rr.comm> wrote in message news:hi0neh$p8a$1(a)news.eternal-september.org... > No issues with the dual boot. I'm more worried about when I decide > to migrate completely to Win7. I'm a little leery about about merging > the partitions into one without messing up the MBR. I wonder if it'd > be safer just to shrink down the first partition to a couple gigs, and > just leaving the dual boot with a 2 second delay. That crossed my mind too, and to make it easier, I made sure that Win7 was on the 1st partition and the later to be deleted Vista on the 2nd. I also figured that before the time comes to remove the Vista partition and add it to Win7, I'll know how to do it safely. Actually, I just might reuse the Vista partition for Linux. > Or maybe just buy a new hard drive... I wonder if MS would have a > problem with two installs in two weeks! Well, if you have the update version of Windows 7, I don't see how you could install it on a new HD because it will be looking for a pre-existing windows.
From: BillW50 on 5 Jan 2010 23:30
Cameo wrote: > Well, if you have the update version of Windows 7, I don't see how you > could install it on a new HD because it will be looking for a > pre-existing windows. There is a trick to get around the problem. Just Google: windows 7 upgrade clean install -- Bill Gateway M465e ('06 era) - Windows 7 (build 7100) |