Question about boot partitions?

Hey there

I have a laptop which has XP Home, Win 7 beta and XP Pro on it and I need to format 2 of the partitions.

Problem is that the partitions concerned contain OS (Win 7 beta and XP Pro) and one is the boot partition (Win 7 beta).

How do I format the two partitions but leave it so that the XP Home installation works?

I think I need to move the boot files over to the XP Home partition but I'm not entirely sure of this so any help would be appreciated.

Thank in advance for any help.

 

I think you can boot into XP, delete the other partitions, boot up your XP Home install disc, run the recovery console and fix the mbr: fixmbr and fixboot. However, I've never done the procedure, so a little googling might be necessary to make sure that will work in your case.

 

Thanks kegobeer, I've done some googling as you suggested and all I can find that might be of any help is this -

Code:

 1. Boot your system in to Windows XP.
2. Ensure you have the Vista DVD image emulated or in the DVD drive
.
3. Go to Start>>Run. Type e:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force
4. You will notice the boot selection menu of vista now gone.
5. Format the partition/drive where you had Vista .
6. Remove two files Boot.BAK & Bootsect.BAK on your XP drives root folder (C:).
7. Restart to make sure that it works.
8. Merge the partitions together if you want.

But that assumes that XP was already installed, i.e. on the boot partition, which is usually C: and in my case is C: and Vista was installed afterwards. So I'm assuming that would work with Win 7 as it's largely the same as Vista.

But I can't find anything about how to make the XP Home partition the boot partition when XP isn't on the boot partition, which is the case for me as it's on E:.

I've removed the XP Pro partition and merged the space with another partition I have that I use as a general storage area, and for installing games to so that one isn't a problem anymore.

Just getting rid of Win 7 beta and reallocating the boot partition without loss of data, i.e. reinstalling XP Home is where I'm lost.

I will continue to look on google though but any further advice would be greatly appreciated.

 

Here's some very limited help, but it might give you some ideas to Google on.

The bootsect/NT52 procedure will remove Win7 beta from the boot menu; I'm not sure if you'd still be able to boot XP via the menu after.

Copying any boot files across is unlikely to work as Vista/7 have different boot methods.

Like kegobeer, I think that setting the active partition to the XP one and fixing the mbr should point to NTLDR (and ntdetect.com, osloader.exe) on the XP drive if that's valid XP should start.... Have you tried creating an XP system disk from within XP whih should contain the files you need?

Also when running the XP repair console, bootcfg/list will list valid Windows installations and /rebuild will rebuild your boot.ini file.

I'm not sure this will work, but it isn't something many people are likely to try.

 

I would make an image of the XP partition before doing anything. If everything falls apart, you can completely wipe the drive, restore the XP partition to C:, then do the repair action to fix the MBR.

 

Yeah I've made a backup already.

I just had an idea, seeing as I've just tried the fixmbr/fixboot method and failed.

I will simply delete the storage partition (D and extend the C: partition, minus the Win 7 Beta files but leave the boot stuff on there, and then put back what was on D: from the backup I've made.

That should work, right?

Because so far I've not been able to get XP to boot, I formatted C: from the recovery console, copied the ntldr/ntdetect.com/boot.ini from the backup I made and the XP CD to both C: and the XP partition (which is recognised as D:, but is listed as E: in XP) and it just won't boot, keeps saying nldr is missing!

I couldn't make the XP partition active, that option was greyed out in the disk management console in XP.

And bootcfg /list or /rebuild or /add just returns and error.

So I'm kinda lost here.

Aside from doing what I said above (about merging C and D partitions), would I be able to restore XP to C:, then do a repair install, then change the drive letter to E to avoid having to reinstall all the apps I have installed?

 

Possibly. But I'm getting a wee bit confused. You want to make your XP install on drive E your active system partition and boot from it?

If NTLDR can't be found it suggests your C drive is still active.

Try running DISKPART - Cmd prompt - DISKPART - then LIST VOLUME in the diskpart window. That should tell you which partition is active. If it's your XP drive then running fixmbr from the XP disk should get as far as NTLDR, if it's the W7 parition then you need to make XP active. If it can't be done from the disk management console then DISKPArt will do it. I can look up how if you need the info.

 

Yeah I'm getting confused as well.

Yes I want to make the XP install on the E partition the one that I boot from. And yes I want to make it the active system partition as the Win 7 partition (C) is currently the active system partition.

When I look in Disk Management in XP or Win 7 it tells me that the XP partition is the boot partition, it has (Boot) written next to it and the Win 7 partition is the system partition, it has (System) written next to it.

Acronis True Image Home can make the XP partition active and primary when I restore it, currently it's only a logical partition with the Win 7 partition as a primary and active partition.

I'm going to try restoring the XP partition as primary/active and format the Win 7 partition but move the boot files to the XP partition beforehand and then run fixmbr/fixboot etc. to see if that works.

I get the feeling today is going to be a long day...

 

Ok this isn't working. Everytime I restore the XP partition to E: using Acronis, after formatting all other partitions, it ends up being seen by the XP install disk as C:

Now correct me if I'm wrong but that means that Windows will think it's on C: instead of E: and all the registry entries will be wrong!

So I'm thinking would a wipe of the HDD, then a clean install to C:, creation of 2 other partitions (D and E) and then a restoration of the XP partition I made a backup of to the new C: partition and changing the drive letter to E: in the registry work?

If it will that would be a whole lot simpler and less confusing.

EDIT: Nope that didn't work either as I couldn't get into XP, it just kept looging me in and then logging me off immediately.

Currently doing a repair install of XP.

If that doesn't work I give up, and I'm gonna do a clean install.

 

It probably would be quicker to reinstall from scratch. On the other hand if you're still trying....

Microsoft terminology: The system drive is the drive with the OS loading files. A boot drive is any drive with the Windows installation. So in your case you need the XP drive to be marked as system and it must also be the active partition. It also has to be on a primary partition.

When I installed W7beta on my XP machine it installed as on the E drive on hda3. When I installed W7RC it installed as on the C drive on hda3! Dunno why. XP is 'C' on hda1 in each case.

The logon/logoff problem is something that occurs when restoring Windows to a different partition. I think there's an easy fix.

I think you're close to working it out, but those last few problems could take an age to suss.

 

Ok I got it, finally, after restoring the disk to it's Win 7, XP Home, and storage partition state...

I found this guide

Before I started going through that guide I did a restore of the E: partition as a primary drive, not a logical one (which it was originally), then I made it the active partition as per that guide.

Before I did that restore though I copied the ntldr, ntdetect.com, boot.ini and other XP boot files (config.sys, msdos.sys etc.) to the E: partition and made a new backup.

That was the backup I used to restore the E: partition as a primary partition.

Then after setting the E partition to active and doing the fixboot step I rebooted, I kept getting the old hal.dll is missing error on boot but that was due to the boot.ini pointing to partition 3 which is correct if it's in a dual boot state.

Bootcfg kept returning an error so I couldn't use that to fix the boot.ini so I solved that by making a backup of the boot.ini from my other laptop (which oddly has the boot.ini setup so that it points to partition 1, even though XP is also in a dual boot and on partition 3 with Win 7 on the "system" partition also on that laptop) and I then restored that using Acronis, overwriting the boot.ini that was present on E: partition.

Now the E: partition shows up as (System) in the disk management console and there is no other (Boot) partition, so the computer is booting solely from E partition now.

In hindsight I guess I could have used Acronis to restore the partition as the active partition, thus never having to use the disk management console, although I'd still have had to do the fixboot step and restore a correct boot.ini, although I could have just solved the boot.ini problem before I made the backup by altering the boot.ini myself (as suggested in the guide I linked to).

I then formatted C partition and put the 202gb space into the D storage partition I have using Easeus partition master and hey presto no more Win 7 and I now have an extra 20gb of storage.

Thanks for the advice guys, it has been much appreciated as always.

 

Thank you JessicaD, the idea in removing Win 7 beta was to remove it as the licence has expired and I need the space.

Thus your solution would not work as I neither wish to install Win 7 RC as I have that on another laptop nor would using Easybcd to make the XP partition the primary boot partition work either as the XP partition was a logical partition to start with, not a primary partition which is what it needed to be in order for me to make it the system partition.

And I have already solved the issue, as I've noted above.

Thank you however for your input.

 

Glad you got it sorted. While it might have been quicker to reinstall at the start, it's good to remind ourselves how this stuff works. I can't remember the last time I had to change an active partition!