Vista Dual Boot - Remove Old OS (Windows 2003)

[Speccyman]

I am running Vista on dual boot.

The primary partition is Windows 2003
The secondary partition is Vista Business.

I now love my Vista so much, I want to get rid of my Windows 2003
Partition. The problem is, due to the way Dual Boot works in Vista, I
have to boot to my Primary Partition, choose "Vista" and then it loads
Vista.

how can I

1) Get the system to boot straight into Vista
2) Delete the Windows 2003 Partition. Currenty, because it is the
primary partition, i cannot resize it. help !

 

[Jonathan Yaniv]

Hello,

To boot straight into Vista, you will need to omit the "Windows 2003" boot
entry.

To do this, right click Computer, click properties, click advanced settings,
accept the UAC prompt, click Settings under startup and recovery, and
uncheck "Time to display list of operating systems". This will tell the
computer to ignore the boot selecter, and boot straight into Windows Vista.
You might also want to tell it that the default OS is Vista.

To remove the Windows Server 2003 partition, right click Computer, select
manage, and then click Disk Management, then, right click your 2003
partition, and select "Delete" this will remove the partition. However, you
wont be able to put the unallocated space back to the vista partition,
because the vista partition is your boot partition, however, you can create
another partition using the unallocated space, as a data partition, if you
wish to do so.




--

Have a nice day,

Jonathan Yaniv
Microsoft Windows LiveT Butterfly Expert

Visit the ButterflySays Blog at
http://spaces.msn.com/ButterflySays/

 

[Speccyman]

Hello,

Tobootstraight intoVista, you will need to omit the "Windows 2003"boot
entry.

To do this, right click Computer, click properties, click advanced settings,
accept the UAC prompt, click Settings under startup and recovery, and
uncheck "Time to display list of operating systems". This will tell the
computer to ignore thebootselecter, andbootstraight into WindowsVista.
You might also want to tell it that the defaultOSisVista.

Toremovethe Windows Server 2003 partition, right click Computer, select
manage, and then click Disk Management, then, right click your 2003
partition, and select "Delete" this willremovethe partition. However, you
wont be able to put the unallocated space back to thevistapartition,
because thevistapartition is yourbootpartition, however, you can create
another partition using the unallocated space, as a data partition, if you
wish to do so.

--

Have a nice day,

Jonathan Yaniv
Microsoft Windows LiveT Butterfly Expert

Visit the ButterflySays Blog athttp://spaces.msn.com/ButterflySays/










- Show quoted text -

To solve this problem I did the following

· In Vista mark the vista partition as active
· On reboot, you will get an error, so boot from the Vista CD
· Navigate at the command prompt to x:\windows\system32 and run
"fixmbr.exe"

On next boot you will go into Vista and can delete/reformat the old
partition. However, partition tools will be needed if you need to
resize it as Vista will only expand to space available in the next
partition, not the preceding one. I have reformatted this partition
as "D" to store VPC's etc