Moving 2nd partition onto deleted 1st partition?

I put 7100 on a second partition on my p.c. so I could test it out since I have had to revert to 7000 paritition on this machine on all builds after 7022 due to internet loss bug. However I have solved the problem and am now ready to move the second partition over onto the first one, which I have done before with Win7 since it has a hidden partition with its boot manager and so it doesn't rely on C: drive to boot.

Normally I would use Disk Management to delete the first partiition, then use Partition Magic Pro 9 to move the second partition over onto the first one's free space. It has worked several times so far, but the problem is that I am not sure I want to have as a long-term main partition one which is labeled "F." Is this going to be a problem somewhere down the line? I cannot find a way to change the drive letter on a primary system partition like this to letter "C" which is now available. Any suggestions or do I just need to clean install?

Can you explain how your partitions are setup now?

How you you assign the drive letter F:

Do you have multiple hard drives?

All-in-all, the upgrade route is a very bad option

I only have one HD. Partition C is Win7000 which I want to delete. Partition F is Win7100 which I want to then move over onto the free space where the first partition was. Then I want to change the letter F: to C: unless there is no reason that I actually need to do this.

Nothing was said about any upgrade install, which I never do anyway. I clean installed both partitions so that I could compare them and now that I have resolved an internet bug issue in 7100, I do not need 7000 to fall back on any longer.

Does the Bootmanager screen come up an allow you to choose which OS to start?

In Disk Management, look at the partitions and see how they are marked.

For example (System Boot, Active, Page File.)

Post back with both partition's information.

Here is the Disk Management console:
Attachment 507

(guess u gotta click on it since it will only render as thumbnail using their attachment wizard)

I see you have the dreaded 200MB partition.

Look over this thread, there may be better solutions:
A 200mb Partition Is Created?

You probably did an upgrade rather than a "clean" install, correct?

You can't delete an active partition in Windows, you have to be in a DOS Command line and switch to another partition or drive to delete these.

I think your best bet would be to save all your important files to a externall USB or Flash drive and delete the 200MB & F: partition and use your original ISO to do a "clean" install.

It would then install to the C: drive. What I do after that is shrink the C: partition, make a new one and install all my 3rd party apps to that partition.

I dont' think I would want to delete the 200mb recovery/boot partition because I have already used it's Repair Windows functions several times via F8. It also is supposed to make the system partitions deletable since it houses the boot, and I have several times deleted both the first and second partitions on my Win7 installations, as I mentioned in my original post. To delete 1st, I use Disk Management to delete the partition, then Partition Magic Pro 9 to move second partition over onto deleted 1st partition's space. The problem here is not moving the partitions, or deleting the 200mb recovery/boot partition which I find useful, but to change the drive letter on my new single partition from F: to C: I need to know if there is any way to do that, or even whether it is necessary any longer with dual booting being popular.

I never had a 200MB partition as I always did a clean install.

I did fire up Partition Magic and saw it has the ability to move a partition.

I have used Partition Magic to create a new partition and it screwed up all my drive letters.

When I do a "clean" install" I change my DVD-Rom to letter Y: and Z:.

This prevents any problems with changing of drive letters. That;'s why your partition is located on F, because your CD-ROMs are listed as D: and E:

I don't want to be responsible for hosingyour system, so don't delete the partitions.

I just hope Partition Magic does the trick.

check this how to resize windows 7 partition tutorial, it may help you better resize windows 7 with free software. Do not use partition magic operate on Windows 7 partition, it doesn't compatible

Originally Posted by reghakr

I never had a 200MB partition as I always did a clean install.

The beta installs always placed the 200mb partition on the drive. Since that was used for several things, including bitlocker, or so I understand, could it be the partition is now hidden?

Anyone have a utiltiy that can see hidden partitions? Keep in mind, it is very small compared to 200 GB partitions.