Remove XP in Dual Boot Environment 1

[btfsplk]

I have W7 and XP Pro running in a dual boot environment. I now want to remove XP, but I don't want to remove or reformat the partition containing XP. (It also contains lots of files and programs not duplicated in the W7 partition.) Is there a way to do that?

 

[rclarke250]

This is from Microsoft Answers, a gentleman at Techrepublic (Bill Detwiler) created a guide just for this, but his original guide, and video are gone from that site, but this is the transcript of the video.

Remove Windows XP from a dual-boot configuration with Windows 7

http://blogs.techrepublic.com.com/itdojo/?p=1306

First, boot into Windows XP, launch Windows Explorer, pull down the Tools menu, select Folder Options, and on the View tab, make sure that the Show Hidden Files and Folders option is selected and that Hide Extensions for Known File Types and Hide Protected Operating System Files are cleared.

Now locate the Boot folder and the bootmgr file.

Open a second instance of Windows Explorer, access the root of the Windows 7 partition, and copy the Boot folder and the bootmgr file from the XP partition.

With your backups in place and the Windows Boot Manager now on the Windows 7 partition, you're ready to delete the XP partition and configure Windows as the main partition.

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First, insert your Windows 7 DVD, restart your system, and, when prompted, select the option to Boot from the DVD. When the first Install Windows screen appears, select the appropriate language preferences and click Next. On the second Install Windows screen, select the Repair Your Computer option.

When you see the System Recovery Options dialog box, the Windows 7 partition should appear in the list and the Use Recovery Tools option should be selected. To continue, click Next.

When the second System Recovery Options dialog box appears and prompts you to choose a Recovery Tool, select the Command Prompt option.

Once the Command Prompt window opens, you'll enter the DiskPart environment and issue a series of commands to select the Windows XP partition, delete it, select the Windows 7 partition, and then make it the active (primary) partition.

First, type the command: Diskpart

Once the Diskpart environment is ready, select first hard disk by typing: Select disk 0

Once the first hard disk has the focus, select the first partition (Windows XP) by typing: Select partition 1

You can double-check that you have the Windows XP partition selected by using the : Detail partition command

Now, delete the Windows XP partition by typing: Delete partition

The select the Windows 7 partition by typing the command: Select partition 2

Make the Windows 7 partition the active primary partition by typing the command: Active

You can now Exit the DiskPart environment by typing: Exit

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At this point you must enable the Windows Boot Manager on the Windows 7 partition using the BootRec command.

So first, write the master boot record to the Windows 7 partition by typing: Bootrec /fixmbr

Then write a new boot sector to the Windows 7 partition with: Bootrec /fixboot

Now, close the Command Prompt window and click the Restart button in the System Recovery Options dialog box. Be sure to remove the Windows 7 DVD.

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When your system restarts, you should see the Windows Boot Manager menu with Windows 7 selected. Keep in mind that even though Windows XP is gone, the menu will still contain an item for it at this point. Allow the system to boot into Windows 7 and log in as you normally would.

To remove the Windows XP item from the Windows Boot Manager menu, you'll use the BCDEdit command. So, open a Command Prompt window with Administrator privileges and type:

BCDEdit /delete {ntldr} /f

Now, restart the system and you should boot straight into Windows 7.

After removing Windows XP, you'll still have an empty partition which you can configure as a simple volume or reallocate the space. For further instructions on how to reallocate the disk space, check out Greg Shultz's original post, "Capture unallocated disk space from an XP to Windows 7 dual-boot migration."

And as always, for more teachings on your path to becoming an IT Ninja, visit trdojo.techrepublic.com, or you can follow me on Twitter at twitter.com/billdetwiler.

 

[btfsplk]

Thanks, rclarke250. I haven't implemented this fix yet, as it calls for deleting the whole partition containing XP. Before I do that, I need to make sure W7 will be able to access the programs and files also located on that partition. I am confident it will work, though, and I appreciate your help.