Couple of questions

[renegade600]

if it is in the same partition, it will not show up. Looking at your disk management, imo, you have a mess and it is confusing as to what you are doing. You have two separate drives each with four partitions.

It looks like you have at least 3 operating systems installed though you said you have one that might be sharing a partition so you could have four. I know what I would do but it could royally mess things up for you so I guess I best let someone else to help you from here.

You asked the quesiton about the boot.ini, it is a hidden file and it should be in your boot partition. that is what you were editing when you went into msconfig and changed the startup operating system list.

[Murf]

Julie,

You have two hard drives;

Ist hard drive is DISK "0" probably a 500GB drive

It has 3 partitions

C: 286.83 GB (Windows 7)
D: 14 GB (factory installed image (recovery files)
J: 158.03GB

2nd hard drive DISK "1" probably 850 to 1TB

It has 4 partitions

H: (Vista Ultimate) 386GB
I: ( Windows 7 Beta) 244GB
G: 66GB
F: 1.45 GB

When you installed Windows 7 it took over as your primary operating system, Windows always uses the "C" drive (partition letter), unless you tell it otherwise. And appears it did not over write the Beta.

The problem you have is Windows 7 Beta has your programs on it i.e., you said "Office", so removing the Beta you would be removing the programs. If you have the program CD's then thats OK, although you would have to re-activate them (if they are MS).

So if you want to get rid of the beta you need to check which programs are installed ther so you know what needs to be installed

Right click on the Globe (Start) and open Windows Explore.

Now navigate to the "I" drive and see what programs are installed, this will tell you If I remove the Beta I will also remove the following programs....and have to re-install them.

You have the "G" and "F" partition, see if anything is on them, if not I would delete them.

[PurestLight]

Sorry I didnt see this Page 3!

Ahhh this is getting complicated now lol please bear with me

Youre right Dan, it does appear to be a mess but its not as bad as it looks, honestly!

Thank you for the link AnnMarie

Murf:

You have two hard drives;

Ist hard drive is DISK "0" probably a 500GB drive

It has 3 partitions

C: 286.83 GB (Windows 7)
D: 14 GB (factory installed image (recovery files)
J: 158.03GB

Disk 0 contains the original Vista HP 64 bit that came pre installed on the pc (HP C: ) along with the pre installed Factory Image (D: )




Disk 1 contains my Vista Ultimate 32-bit (H: ) (which I can't use on this 64 bit system)
Windows 7 (I: ) originally had the RC W7 which I then installed my new Windows 7 Full version on and expected it to overwrite but don't think it did as it was still showing on my boot menu until I removed it via msconfig.
New Volume G: is empty and I was hoping to merge it into I: but don't know how....

Originally Posted by Murf

When you installed Windows 7 it took over as your primary operating system, Windows always uses the "C" drive (partition letter), unless you tell it otherwise. And appears it did not over write the Beta.

I didnt tell it not to use C: so I dont know what happened there

The version of MS Office I installed is brand new and I ordered it when I ordered Windows 7, and installed it after I had done my files and settings transfer Wizard
This is what is on I: Drive:



What does deleting a drive do? I was going to do that but I wasnt sure what would happen. Similarly I would like to delete J: also

I think I should have installed Windows 7 on the 0 Drive but I didnt want to get rid of the OS that came with the PC just in case I made a hash of it!

Sorry if I havent answered all your questions correctly and thank you for helping me

[renegade600]

I will try one more time,

1. you can delete the original os. In fact if you used it to justified purchasing vista upgrade, it should have been deleted and cannot be used to justify another os. As long as you have the recovery partition, you have something you can fall back on.

2. If your windows 7 is an upgrade version, if you used the original os to justify the vista, the vista ultimate is the only way you can justify purchasing the win 7 upgrade. Then you must remove vista ultimate.

3. you said you may have win 7 in the same partition as your win7 rc. You can delete all win7 rc folders to get your space back, IMO, as I said before, it would be better to just start from scratch with the win 7.

4. You said you want to extend the win7 partition into the new volume. All you have to do is to right click win7 partition in disk management and extend the partition. If you should get an access error, just delete the new volume partition and it will be come unallocated. You should be able to extend the win 7 partition that way.

5. You said something about deleting j partition, again just go into disk management, right click the drive and click on delete volumn. it will be come unallocated.

6. I am going to find me an aspirin and wait for your next post.

[PurestLight]

Originally Posted by renegade600

2. If your windows 7 is an upgrade version, if you used the original os to justify the vista, the vista ultimate is the only way you can justify purchasing the win 7 upgrade.

-my W7 is an upgrade version

-by virtue of installing W7 on the Vista Ultimate drive, then the qualifying OS is Vista Ultimate

Originally Posted by renegade600

you can delete the original os. In fact if you used it to justified purchasing vista upgrade

-I didnt have to justify installing Vista Ultimate, this wasnt an upgrade version. I installed it all on its own on a brand new HD last Xmas

-I cant see any Windows7 RC folders. The only evidence it is/was still there was the boot menu

Im going to tinker around in DiskManagement a bit now to see what I can delete. Then I may do a spot of formatting and reinstall W7. Or I might leave it alone........

Hope your headache goes soon

[PurestLight]

I deleted the J: drive, and that has now become unallocated space (158.63 GB) which is what I expected.

I deleted the G: drive and it became Free Space, not unallocated. Either way I can't extend the W7 (I: )drive, so I reformatted it (The G drive) and it is now New Volume G: again. Unless I can make it unallocated I cant extend into it can I

Think I need the aspirin now

[renegade600]

my headache is now gone after a few extra strength Tylenols pm's and some bbq baby back ribs from a local bbq shack. They were good too...I wished I brought home a slab of them.

did you try extending j after reformating g drive. (right click j drive then extend) it should work.

[PurestLight]

J: is the 158.63 GB partition, its at the end of Disk0. I think I could extend D: into J: but I cant extend J: into anything (Extend volume is greyed out):




I love ribs......and Im starving now!

[renegade600]

for whatever reason, it looked like j was where you had windows 7. the original picture of your disk management was blurring to me...sorry I am messing you up. That is why I was hesitant to continue to help earlier.

the following is iffy, I am not sure how the recovery volume will react. when you first got the computer, did you create disks for your recovery? If so, try the following, right click the recovery partiton and extend the partition, then shrink it and try to get the free space to the left of the recovery partition. I did i before but never with the recovery volume. As I said this is iffy so do so at your own risk because you could lose your recovery volume.

[PurestLight]

I made a set of backup discs when I got the PC so thats something. Ill give it a go tomorrow, its late now and I shouldnt do these things when Im snoozy