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Windows Vista Formatting an old system partition in Vista

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by Lukeno1, 2009/12/26.

  1. 2009/12/26
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    I'm fairly sure the old system partition is causing a large mess, but I have a few questions:

    1. Is there a way in Vista, by hand (in notepad or whatever), like in XP, to remove operating systems from the list?
    2. If I removed the old OS from the list, would Disk Management stop telling me it was a System drive, and then let me format it whilst running this copy, or do I need to use the Vista CD?
    3. Will that format mess up this system, as it still thinks its a system disk?
     
    Lukeno1,
    #1
  2. 2009/12/26
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    1. No

    2. You can't boot an OS and then format the drive it is running on. That is what it is telling you

    You'd better explain your drive configuration better....
     
    Arie,
    #2


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  4. 2009/12/26
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    1. Damnit, typical Microsoft preventing you from fixing things yourself.

    2. The hard drive I am trying to format is "D ", the old "C" drive, with the old, broken copy of Vista on it. It wasn't previously reformatted as I needed to rescue data off it - now done. The new copy of Vista, on the new "C" drive, formerly the "F" drive, recognizes that it is booted from "C ", but still refers to "D" as a system drive, even though there is no Windows folder any more (moved to "Windows.old" during the Vista setup). See this image for a better explanation.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #3
  5. 2009/12/26
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Well, you'd probably get some problems with your system if you format disk 0 (partition D). It being labeled as System drive means that it contains the boot manager.

    What you need to do is:

    1. Boot off the Vista DVD, and delete the partitions off the drive. Recreate & format any partitions you want
    2. At this time your system won't be able to boot, as the boot manager is now missing. Reboot your PC off the DVD, and this time choose Repair your computer on the Vista install screen
    3. The repair process will most likely detect the startup issue & repair it for you. If not, from the list of options given, choose Startup Repair

    I also note that your Disk 0 contains an EISA partition. This partition could hold your OS files, so before deleting this partition make sure you have all the files needed from it, or leave this partition.
     
    Arie,
    #4
  6. 2009/12/26
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Eh no, it is protecting you from making a big mess!
     
    Arie,
    #5
  7. 2009/12/26
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    No, because on XP I was able to change the booted from device in an ini file, when cleaning up the mess used by a file cloning program.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #6
  8. 2009/12/26
    wildfire

    wildfire Getting Old

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    The boot.ini file would have been on the system disk (like vista), formatting the system disk would also have caused problems in XP (you'd still need to do a recovery) ;)

    Lukeno1,

    There's no real change, Vista is just making it a little more difficult to trash your system (no bad thing in my opinion).
     
    wildfire,
    #7
  9. 2009/12/26
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Ah well, next time I reboot I'll have to put the Vista disc in.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #8
  10. 2009/12/28
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    That didn't work at all. I deleted the partition, repaired the Vista install, and all it did was recreate the partition again!
     
    Lukeno1,
    #9
  11. 2009/12/28
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Check in your BIOS to see which drive is set as th 1st boot drive. I think that's the problem.
     
    Arie,
    #10
  12. 2009/12/28
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    The DVD-RW drive is set as the first boot device, or have I misunderstood you?
     
    Lukeno1,
    #11
  13. 2009/12/28
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Look at the hard drives. On the 1st page of the BIOS it usually shows 1st SATA, 2nd SATA, 3 SATA (etc)...
     
    Arie,
    #12
  14. 2009/12/28
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    The first hard drive in that is the older one - Dell being Dell, I can't prioritize the drives.
     
    Lukeno1,
    #13
  15. 2009/12/29
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    Is D: still listed as System? Has a Windows (or Windows.old) folder been created on it?
     
    mattman,
    #14
  16. 2009/12/29
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Windows.old does exist there - is that why? Do I need to move/remove that?
     
    Lukeno1,
    #15
  17. 2009/12/29
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    You'll have to physically change the connections.
     
    Arie,
    #16
  18. 2009/12/29
    Lukeno1

    Lukeno1 Well-Known Member Thread Starter

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    Well, that will have to wait until I get my new case/PSU then. :/
     
    Lukeno1,
    #17

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