Win 7/XP/Vista Tri to Dual boot: Boot loader and partition queries

I have 2 Hard disk drives "HDD1" and "HDD2"

HDD1: This has 2 partitions, The primary partition has my windows XP installation

HDD2: This has 3 partitions, The primary partition has my windows vista installation

Now I've just installed Windows 7 making it a tri-boot system, everything worked fine until I started having major errors in windows 7 that was due to the partition being formatted and created by Acronis 9 which (only found out afterwards) is not compatible with windows 7 and has major issues. Not a huge problem.

So I redid windows 7 installation and let windows 7 setup format the partition for it to remedy this. So now I have a triple boot with wndows 7 on the 3rd partition on HDD2.

I've been preparing for installing window 7 for awhile and intend to replace vista instllation with it, just wanted to install win 7 first to ensure everything worked smoothly with compatibility etc..

Now I have no issues I want to remove vista and my main query is, what is the best way to do this? To reiterate

HDD1: Windows XP
HDD2 1st partition: Windows Vista
HDD2: 3rd partition: Windows 7

I've already backed up all my important data on my vista partition so I'm set to remove it now. I'm just not sure the best way to go about it.

My operating systems were installed in this order
1st: XP
2nd: Vista
3rd: Win 7

I used VistaBootPro3.3 to manage my boot loader after installing vista, so I think the vista bootloader was controlling it, I'm not sure what controls it now having installed windows 7, just that it's still working. Actually I just referenced some notes and I know it was, before installing windows 7, running off the Vista boot loader as I uninstalled the legacy (XP) boot loader.

So, having installed windows 7, will it now be working with windows 7 boot loader? I'm asking obviously because if I remove vista, I want to ensure the boot loader still functions properly and allows me to choose a dual boot between XP and Win 7 still.

Back to removing Vista. As Vista is installed on the same disk as Win 7, different partitons. I intend to use all of HDD2 for windows 7 and HDD1 will be just for XP. Therefore can I simply format the HDD2 partiton1 and partiton2 within windows 7 (computer management), is it as simple as this? Will this cause any issues? specifically with the bootloader.

I'm hoping it's just as simple as this. Format HDD2 partiton 1 and 2 from within windows 7 and the win 7 bootloader will retain a dual boot for win xp and win 7. I'm guessing if at worst it causes an issue with the boot loader I can always fix this in VistaBootPro 3.3 which recognizes windows 7.

Any suggestions greatly appreciated.

 

OK, I'm a bit confused here so I'll recap what I understand.

XP is still loaded, right? You want to get rid of Vista and have W7 as second boot after XP? Assuming that, load VBP in XP and delete both Vista and W7 boots, re-arrange your partitions as you wish and re-install W7. You can then remove VBP from XP as it's no longer needed.

Just to clarify what VBP does, it is not a bootloader and controls nothing upon boot. It is just a GUI front-end to simplify the confusing use of the BCD Store commands, which does all the work. That's all it does, is make the BCD more user friendly.

EDIT: Just to add a bit, when you loaded W7 then that was the MBR that was dominant over Vista and XP.

 

Sorry, i'll try to clarify as I'm going off notes from years back. When the legacy boot loader was running my vista/xp dual boot never worked, it wouldn't show one or other of the operating system installed or allow me to boot to one or the other. I had to fix this by uninstalling the legacy boot loader and installing the vista loader.

XP is loaded on HDD1
Vista is currently still loaded on HDD2 partition 1 and now Win 7 is loaded on HDD2 partition 3, as it stands I can boot into any 3 of the OS's, they all work with the current setup, I just want to remove Vista now and ensure it still works with XP and Win 7 afterwards.

 

OK, then just delete the Vista boot and the W7 will still work but you'll have an empty partition on your second HDD before W7. If that's no issue for you then leave W7 where it is, as it will work just fine.

I'm a bit more anal and would rather have the greater flexibility of having W7 at the beginning of the drive and divvy up the rest of the drive as I wish. Up to you of course.

 

Thanks, took your advice as I'm anal too

Used BCDEdit to remove Vista entry in boot, reinstalled windows 7 and used the advanced options to format HDD2 partition 1 and 2 then installed windows 7 to partition 1. So far it's been working solid, none of the previous errors.

RESOLVED

 

Hahaha, so you went to the devil to fix your issue!:-D Kudos to you for learning the BCDStore instead of using a program to do it for you. I was in the Vista betas and never could grasp it.:confused