Vista Recovery Disk (Shrink, expand, create, delete partitions)
Paragon Partition Manager 8.5- PPM Special Edition serial and free registrationĬloneZilla GParted LiveCD (Complete partitioning and drive imaging/restoration tools) Right-click Computer > Manage > Disk Management.ĭr.Freeware Boot CD (also has file recovery, disk imaging and cloning)ĮASEUS Partition Master (Vista-compatible)
Then, reboot and set up the old drive as you want in Disk Management. Use the booted tool to remove the partitions from the old drive.
If your machine will boot OK with the old drive disconnected, then just connect the old drive and boot from a partitioning CD. The old drive may be designated as "system" simply because the new installation detects a pagefile on that drive, even if it is not being used. If your machine will boot OK with the old drive disconnected, then you have all your needed boot files and MBR on the new drive. When it's finished, click Finish, and the system should boot to Vista. This will restore the "missing" bootmgr to the Vista partition. It will search for Vista installations and display a list, Highlight the Vista entry and click NextĬlick Startup Repair. Select your Language settings, click Next If SATA drives, just move the DATA cable from the XP drive to the Vista drive. If these are IDE drives you'll have to change jumpers or positions on the IDE Cable. Since the Vista boot manager is on this drive, it will now be "missing", so we can repair itĬonnect the Vista drive in it's place so it will be Disk 0. Power down the system and disconnect the XP Drive. If you can't get to your Vista disk easily, you can download the Windows 7 RC, and use it in place of the Vista DVD to do a Startup Repair.įirst, in Disk Management, right click the Vista partition on Disk 1 and click Mark Partition as Active You can move the boot files to the Vista partition using the Vista DVD or a Win7 DVD to do a Repair. You'll have to disable the Recycle Bin for drive C, turn off System Restore monitoring of the C: drive, and also take ownership of the System Volume Information folder (and possibly others) to be able to delete some of the folders. You can just delete all the files on that partition (Except for the boot files in the Root of C: and the Boot folder)? It's the first Active partition that the BIOS uses to start the boot process, so that's where the system files have to go.
Windows always puts the files that boot the OS onto the first Active partition (shown in Disk management as both System and Active), regardless of where you install the actual OS files (shown in Disk management as Boot, may also be Active).