I have read many threads on this topic but never one that was quite like my senerio.

I have a computer with two drives. Both are IDE. The second drive is not important as it is only a place for pictures and video. The first drive is where XP and Vista reside.

The first drive is partitioned into two volumes. I installed XP on this drive in the first partition. The drive was clean before this. I then installed Vista on the second partition of the first drive. Everything works fine when it boots asking you what OS you want and loading the default after "X" amount of seconds.

What I want to do is get rid of the XP partition and use the Expand/shink feature of Vista to combine the space back with the Vista partition as my drive is only 40 gigs that houses both OS and I have no need for XP anymore. Here lies the problem... Partition 1 has the "Active/MBR" according to the "drives manager" when you right click the computer icon.

How do you remove XP, merge (expand in vista I think) newly alocated space back with the second partition which vista resides on and still boot into the OS Vista? Is this even possible?

There are a number of Partitin Managers for this.

Such as Partition Magic


First Make Vista Partition active partition
Delete XP Partition
Increase the partition size.

Before u Begin make a backup of the vista partition. (Norton Ghost Works great as a backup tool, so does Nero Back It Up).

btw all three steps can be done in Partition Magic.
These steps are similar in most Partition Managers

You are right. The boot files are all on the XP partition!

It is possible to do as you think, but I don't recommend it...Save yourself a lot of future issues. Save the data that you wish to keep and just wipe the drive and reformat and start over.

Resizing a drive to compress a partition and create another partition is one thing. To keep the MBR from one partition and then resize into one partition is quite something else all together.

Ok. Another problem...

Backed up Vista Partion using Nero Backitup. Wiped drive and created a bootable disk with Nero BackItUp. Deleted partitions and restored backup to un-partitioned drive. Now it says Bootmgr is missing and I tried to repair it but it says the file system is corrupt and unreadable and can't fix it.

What do I need to do now?

You will need to use the original installation disc and rebuild the boot files.

We already discussed that the boot record was on the XP partition. What made you think that a back up program would copy files from another drive or partition.?

Are all the programs and apps such a big deal that you can't just start over.? You have all ready wasted a lot of time on trying things that don't work, why not do something that you know will work.

You have 2 drives. repartition the data drive into two partitions and install the bacup copy of vista to it...you will not be able to pull files from the back up disc untill they are re-installed onto the drive.... (you can do that at any time)

Take the drive that you want vista installed to and just wipe it and all the partitions and re-install a clean installation of vista to it. Then reinstall the programs and do the updates and get the operating system the way you want it. Now just transfer the data from the back-up copy to the new system and when done wipe the partition that the back-up was on and re-use it for either aditional storage or for back up storage.

NOTE********** you can not transfer programs and applications from one operating system to another...you can take the saved files folders from the applications and swappthem ot import them into the same programs that you have re-installed on the new system.

For future references...the next time you wish to use dual booting use a third party boot manager like BootIt NG (pay for it) or GAG (free) both work almost exactly alike.

Ok got it to work and didn't waste much time at all. As a matter of fact it was quite simple when I actually dove into it...

Here are the following steps...

1- Backed up Vista partition using Nero BackItUp. (Be sure to create a Nero Boot up disk as this is very much needed)

2- Removed partition/volume information on said drive

3- Formated said drive

4- Rebooted with Nero Boot disk in drive

5- Found previous backup and restored it to proper drive

6- Turned off computer and unpluged all drives except where vista resides

7- Turned computer back on with Vista DVD in drive (Need to make it find windows installation - Read Following steps)

8- Select "repair computer"

9- Select "Command Prompt"

10- Type <bootrec /fixmbr> without '<>'

11- Copy 'bootmgr' from <DVDROM> (Where vista DVD resides) to Vista harddrive

12- Load 'diskpart' from Command Prompt

13- Type RESCAN at DISKPART prompt - Be sure to make sure it finds your hard drive where vista resides

14- Type list to find what disk and partition it is (Remember these numbers)

15- Type 'SELECT DISK=X (where X is, is the number of hard drive)

16- Type 'SELECT PARTITION=X (where X is, is the number of partition)

17- Type 'ACTIVE' to set partition as active.

18- Reboot

19- If all is successful windows VISTA should boot. If not it may require one more step of REBOOTING with Vista DVD in drive and selecting 'REPAIR COMPUTER' on more time and then selecting 'REPAIR STARTUP'.

I now have vista up and running smoothly.

Glad to hear it worked out ok for you!

Me, I have never had any luck at all in repairing the MBR. Of course, that was for windows XP. I have yet had to, nor want to, perform such an action in vista.

Thanks for keeping us informed!