Installing Windows 7 Without Dual Boot

[Drazick]

Hello.

I'm trying to install Windows 7.

I have Windows Vista installed.

When I install I formatted C and Installed on it.

Yet when I boot I got the menu to chose between Windows 7 and Vista.

How can make sure next time I install nothing is left from the previous OS?

Thanks.

[ripken204]

how many partitions are on this drive?

do you have a separate boot partition?

and just because it is the c: drive does not make it a windows partition, i usually look at the size of the partition.

[Drazick]

Let's make it theoretical.

I have 3 partitions.

On one of them Windows Vista (Partition 0).

How can I make Windows 7 install and leave no sign of the previous OS?

Thanks.

[ripken204]

let's make it real, do you have three partitions?

if vista is really on patition0 and partition0 is the active(boot) partition then you should format that during install and then install windows 7 onto partition 0.

[Drazick]

OK.

Now I go to Manage in Vista.

I see 3 partitions. How can I tell which on is which? I see C: is designated as "Boot". Yet on the install process you only get partition numbers. How can I know those numbers before?

Thanks.

[ripken204]

like i said, i look at the partition size.

odds are that each of your partitions is not sized exactly the same.

and just reading from left to right in disk manager is part0, part1, part2, etc

right now my C drive is part1

[Drazick]

What if I reinstall windows 7, what should I do about the the 100MB system Partition?

Now I have 4 partitions:

1. Partition 0 - 100MB - Made by the previous Windows 7 installation.

2. Partition 1 - 172GB - System Boot - Where Windows 7 is installed now.

3. Partition 2 / 3 - Regular.

Should I format Partition 1 and just set the installation target on it?

Thanks.

P.S.

I did as I wrote and again got Dual Boot.

What should I do in order to install it on partition 1 (Without any remains of the previous installations) and leave partition 2 and 3 untouched?

Edited August 28, 2009 by Drazick

[g-force]

Okay, you`ve got 4 partitions. Win7 should be installed, and partitions 3 &4 should be untouched.

What about the 2 "untouched" partitions (former 3 & 4) - just data, or is there an OS installed?

If just data, you should install like that:

Partition 1 & 2 can be deleted at Win7-Setup. There`s an option "Extended" (or like this)

when you boot from DVD, you`ll see the Partitionmanager. If you first delete 1 & 2

and leave the others untouched, you have left 172,1 GB free space and the former 3 &4 - now as 2 & 3.

Now you install Win7 in the free space, and everything should be fine.

[Mr Snrub]

Now I have 4 partitions:

1. Partition 0 - 100MB - Made by the previous Windows 7 installation.

2. Partition 1 - 172GB - System Boot - Where Windows 7 is installed now.

3. Partition 2 / 3 - Regular.

Should I format Partition 1 and just set the installation target on it?

If you boot from the DVD and format partition 1 alone then select it as the destination, you will likely end up with 2 entries in the BCD (held on partition 0) to boot into Windows 7 - the original one will be left behind.

If you want a single boot entry by doing (yet another) reinstall, then format partition 0 as well as partition 1.

Alternatively, you can use BCDEDIT from an elevated command prompt to find & remove the old reference.

Use bcdedit with no arguments to list the Boot Loader entries - "{current}" is the indicator of which entry your current instance booted from, and if you have a second entry with the same values for device and path, then there is your old invalid reference.

You can take the GUID in the identifier field and use that with bcdedit /delete {your GUID}

If you enter bcdedit /delete /? at a command prompt then you can see the syntax with examples.

As an example I made a duplicate entry in my BCD with the command bcdedit /copy {current} /d "Test Entry", and here is the output from bcdedit afterwards:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier			  {bootmgr}
device				  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
description			 Windows Boot Manager
locale				  en-US
inherit				 {globalsettings}
default				 {current}
resumeobject			{3febdef3-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
displayorder			{current}
						{3febdf03-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
toolsdisplayorder	   {memdiag}
timeout				 5

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier			  {current}
device				  partition=C:
path					\Windows\system32\winload.exe
description			 Windows 7 Ultimate x64
locale				  en-US
inherit				 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence		{3febdef5-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
recoveryenabled		 Yes
osdevice				partition=C:
systemroot			  \Windows
resumeobject			{3febdef3-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
nx					  OptOut
debug				   No

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier			  {3febdf03-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
device				  partition=C:
path					\Windows\system32\winload.exe
description			 Test Entry
locale				  en-US
inherit				 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence		{3febdef5-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
recoveryenabled		 Yes
osdevice				partition=C:
systemroot			  \Windows
resumeobject			{3febdef3-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
nx					  OptOut
debug				   No

I then entered the command bcdedit /delete {3febdf03-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b} which returned the result "The operation completed successfully.", and here is the output from bcdedit after this:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier			  {bootmgr}
device				  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
description			 Windows Boot Manager
locale				  en-US
inherit				 {globalsettings}
default				 {current}
resumeobject			{3febdef3-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
displayorder			{current}
toolsdisplayorder	   {memdiag}
timeout				 5

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier			  {current}
device				  partition=C:
path					\Windows\system32\winload.exe
description			 Windows 7 Ultimate x64
locale				  en-US
inherit				 {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence		{3febdef5-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
recoveryenabled		 Yes
osdevice				partition=C:
systemroot			  \Windows
resumeobject			{3febdef3-7348-11de-b396-a2b5a893540b}
nx					  OptOut
debug				   No