Question:
I upgraded an existing XP MCE install to Vista Ultimate 64-bit. Vista
installed to a partition on another hard drive - a 74G Raptor. System is now
dual-boot between Vista and XP. Both drives are SATA.
I am happy with Vista, and want to remove XP from Disk 0 which (under Vista)
is the D drive. However, that partition in Disk Manager is marked as
(System, Active, Primary Partition) and cannot be formatted or deleted. The
Vista partition on disk 1 is marked (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary
Partition), but not Active. I'm wary of marking it as active....as I'm not
sure what I'm doing there.
I've tried to boot the computer with the XP drive disconnected, but it won't
boot. I've tried to do a repair from the Vista disk with the XP drive
disconnected, but it can't find ANY windows installs. I've tried loading
SATA drivers but that doesn't help - I don't think I need them anyway - I
can SEE the Vista drive when I browse for drivers....
Is there any way other than a complete new install without the XP drive
connected and a format of the Vista drive?
Answer:
Okay - that was WAY too hard. There must be must be an easier way, but this
is how I did it. Actual steps are short - finding them took a long time!
1. Mark the Vista partition as active in Disk Manager.
2. Copy Boot.ini, bootmgr, and boot subdirectory from XP drive to Vista
drive. Two files in the boot subdirectory will not copy because they are in
use - that's okay.
3.Turn off computer and disconnect the XP drive. This may not be necessary
if your bios allows the next step.
4. Move the Vista disk to the first disk position in the 'hard disk boot
order' in bios.
5. Boot to the Vista DVD (64-bit in my case)
6. Choose repair windows and let it fix, repair, install ,whatever, the boot
sector on the vista disk.
Voila! Now does not ask which OS, just boots right to Vista.
It amazes me that there is not a standard built-in way to does this - When
upgrading from XP x86 to Vista 64bit, installing to another drive seems like
a natural way to do it.
You might try installing VISTABOOTPro the free utility you can download
from http://www.vistabootpro.org/
It handles the bits you need to manually edit to alter dual boot
settings. Try installing that in the VISTA partition, running it and
see if you get a tool to uninstall the XP and set the VISTA partition
up as if it were alone.
Then you would be able to format the XP partition without destroying
the boot files that VISTA will have put on the XP partition.
I'm not sure you can do this but doing the converse -- remove VISTA and
leave XP on its own is certainly set up in VISTABOOTPro.
If it doesn't work when installed in the VISTA partition try doing it
installed in the XP partition which may be where it wants to be.
