Removing Windows 8

[Ed Cryer]

Removing an OS is done by two processes;
1. Remove it from the boot menu.
2. Delete or format the partition.

I've removed it from the booting menu, but can't do 2 because that
partition is currently the System one. It won't let me shrink it, delete
it or format it. I could delete the vast majority of files on it, but
not the lot.
The best method would be to change the System setting to Win7 (C).
How do I do that?

Win7 (C) Simple, Dynamic, NTFS Healthy(Boot, Page File, Crash Dump)
291 GB
Win8 (D) Simple, Dynamic, NTFS Healthy (System) 115 GB

Ed

 

[Peter Foldes]

LOL. You do not listen do you Ed. Read the Read.Me files how to do remove the
PREVIEW. Psssst a small hint. Do you know how to format your hard drive???

JS

 

[Ed Cryer]

LOL. You do not listen do you Ed. Read the Read.Me files how to do
remove the PREVIEW. Psssst a small hint. Do you know how to format your
hard drive???

JS

Are you as sure of that as the other claims you've made?
One was that when Win8 had "eaten" a drive there was no way back.
Another was that it had an inbuilt self-destruct mechanism for after 6
months.

Sail on cap'n Columbus. The crew are mutinying and saying that we'll
fall off the edge of the world. But sail on, mi amigo. No es verdad!

My sketch plan is as follows;
1. Format the Win8 disk with a Linux live CD.
2. Do a repair with a Win7 installation disk.

I have a slight doubt about the setting of "System disk"; whether the
above procedure would be scuppered by it or not.
I could, of course, retain that disk as the System disk, delete all the
deletable stuff, rename it and use it for data.

Ed

 

[Ed Cryer]

LOL. You do not listen do you Ed. Read the Read.Me files how to do
remove the PREVIEW. Psssst a small hint. Do you know how to format your
hard drive???

JS

P.S. You didn't write this blog, did you?
"According to Microsoft, you cannot perform an uninstall of the Windows
8 Developer Preview from a computer."
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5vjy3o4

 

[RnR]

Are you as sure of that as the other claims you've made?
One was that when Win8 had "eaten" a drive there was no way back.
Another was that it had an inbuilt self-destruct mechanism for after 6
months.

Sail on cap'n Columbus. The crew are mutinying and saying that we'll
fall off the edge of the world. But sail on, mi amigo. No es verdad!

My sketch plan is as follows;
1. Format the Win8 disk with a Linux live CD.
2. Do a repair with a Win7 installation disk.

I have a slight doubt about the setting of "System disk"; whether the
above procedure would be scuppered by it or not.
I could, of course, retain that disk as the System disk, delete all the
deletable stuff, rename it and use it for data.

Ed

Ed, this advice won't help now but in the future when you want to try
something, think virtual drives and you won't have this worry.

 

[VanguardLH]

"According to Microsoft, you cannot perform an uninstall of the
Windows 8 Developer Preview from a computer."
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5vjy3o4

Test software (app or OS) doesn't get installed on a production host.
It gets installed on a test host or inside a VM. It obviously isn't
polished enough to be a release version so don't treat it as such.
Preview versions are meant to target users that will test and report on
the software, not try to use it as a production host.

So where are your backups? Use a bootable CD with an OS (e.g., Live CD)
or with utilities that let you delete and format partitions. You could
omit the formatting step as you could use the bootable CD to delete and
create partitions and then your bootable rescue CD for your backup to
restore the backed up image, or use the bootable installation CD for
Win7 if you want to start from scratch. If you don't backup, you deem
your data as trivial or reproducible. If you don't backup, now you've
been burned and it's time to think about it.

If you have backups, there should be a means to recover them from
scratch (where you have to lay down a fresh OS or replace an image). If
not and you have data you want to keep, you'll need a bootable CD with
partitioning utilities. You could then delete the Win8 partition, move
the old Win7 partition to the end of the hard disk (optionally squeeze
its size down to remove slack space), mark is NOT active, and you end up
with 1 partition at the end. Then install a fresh copy of Win7 in the
unused space at the start of the hard disk. When you boot into the new
install of Win7, you'll have the old Win7 as a data disk from where you
can retrieve your data files. When you're done with data retrieval, use
a partition manager again to delete the old Win7 partition and enlarge
the tail end of the new Win7 partition.

 

[Ed Cryer]

Test software (app or OS) doesn't get installed on a production host.
It gets installed on a test host or inside a VM. It obviously isn't
polished enough to be a release version so don't treat it as such.
Preview versions are meant to target users that will test and report on
the software, not try to use it as a production host.

So where are your backups? Use a bootable CD with an OS (e.g., Live CD)
or with utilities that let you delete and format partitions. You could
omit the formatting step as you could use the bootable CD to delete and
create partitions and then your bootable rescue CD for your backup to
restore the backed up image, or use the bootable installation CD for
Win7 if you want to start from scratch. If you don't backup, you deem
your data as trivial or reproducible. If you don't backup, now you've
been burned and it's time to think about it.

If you have backups, there should be a means to recover them from
scratch (where you have to lay down a fresh OS or replace an image). If
not and you have data you want to keep, you'll need a bootable CD with
partitioning utilities. You could then delete the Win8 partition, move
the old Win7 partition to the end of the hard disk (optionally squeeze
its size down to remove slack space), mark is NOT active, and you end up
with 1 partition at the end. Then install a fresh copy of Win7 in the
unused space at the start of the hard disk. When you boot into the new
install of Win7, you'll have the old Win7 as a data disk from where you
can retrieve your data files. When you're done with data retrieval, use
a partition manager again to delete the old Win7 partition and enlarge
the tail end of the new Win7 partition.

Thanks for that, but it's no improvement on the two options I already have.
1. A full backup 11 days ago + all changes since.
2. Carry on as now, and just ignore the few GBs used by Win8.

Ed

 

[Paul]

Removing an OS is done by two processes;
1. Remove it from the boot menu.
2. Delete or format the partition.

I've removed it from the booting menu, but can't do 2 because that
partition is currently the System one. It won't let me shrink it, delete
it or format it. I could delete the vast majority of files on it, but
not the lot.
The best method would be to change the System setting to Win7 (C).
How do I do that?

Win7 (C) Simple, Dynamic, NTFS Healthy(Boot, Page File, Crash Dump)
291 GB
Win8 (D) Simple, Dynamic, NTFS Healthy (System) 115 GB

Ed

I don't really understand what's going on there and what the configuration is.
Why you can't boot into Windows 7 and delete Windows 8.

At the very least, you should have a backup of the entire disk, so if
a step turns out to be wrong, you've got options.

You could try using PTEDIT32, and set the "Type" field of the partition
you want to delete, to "00" from "07". The advantage of that, is you don't
have to change any of the other fields. Setting it to 00 might, in the
case of Windows, cause Windows to ignore that partition on the next boot.
Now, whether Windows will allow you to change the current "C:" partition
in that way, I don't know. I haven't tried that.

You'd run PTEDIT32 as admin.

You can also do this from a Linux LiveCD. Fdisk has the same capabilities as
PTEDIT32, with a less convenient interface. I like in PTEDIT32, how I can just
edit the numbers, copy the numbers from one row to another and so on. But this
also has a simple command for changing the type field of a primary partition.

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

You could also edit the partition table with a hex editor, by using "dd"
and copying the MBR into a 512 byte table, make edits, then write it back.
(There are four 16 byte fields in the MBR, which is the same info that PTEDIT32
displays.)

Note that, changing the partition type, isn't sufficient in all cases.
I've had software "sniff" a partition, and examine the header portion of the
partition itself, and figure out it's NTFS and mount it. So changing the
partition type to 0x00 is not a guarantee it can't be detected. I'm hoping
in this case, that Windows 7 Repair won't ferret out that partition and
change the field back to 0x07 on you.

*******

The other complicating factor here, is "Dynamic". That has the advantage of
being able to span a partition onto more than one disk, but it can complicate
other things you do. I don't know now, if a partition table manipulation
will be enough to do the job. I've never done partition table changes on a
Dynamic Disk. The thing is, the metadata also contains information on
the disk structure...

I *never* leave partitions in dynamic mode, because I don't know the mechanics
of dealing with issues on them! Dynamic Disks uses something like 1 megabyte
of metadata, up near one end of the disk. As far as I know, this allows
logical volume management, supports spanning across multiple physical disks
and the like. A Partition Editor would know how to safely manipulate something
like that, but I'd have a little research to do, before I used the "Paul approach"
on it (hex editor and sticks of dynamite) As far as I know, the partitions
on my Win7 laptop are Basic rather than Dynamic. It's one less thing to worry
about when I'm hacking stuff.

There is a section here on Dynamic disks. It doesn't go into enough detail
to "get out the hex editor".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Disk_Manager

There are recipes out there, to convert a simple dynamic disk back to basic,
but I don't know if they would cover Vista/Win7/Win8. The recipes rely on
the layout of the data itself, being compatible across both modes, such that
changing the partition table value.

OK, this is what i was looking for.

http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html

"42 Windows 2000 dynamic extended partition marker

If a partition table entry of type 0x42 is present in the legacy partition
table, then W2K ignores the legacy partition table and uses a proprietary
partition table and a proprietary partitioning scheme (LDM or DDM). As
the Microsoft KnowledgeBase writes: Pure dynamic disks (those not containing
any hard-linked partitions) have only a single partition table entry (type 42)
to define the entire disk. Dynamic disks store their volume configuration in
a database located in a 1-MB private region at the end of each dynamic disk."

I think that's why I don't like Dynamic Disks for home usage. It prevents
me from using PTEDIT32 for a lot of things... When there is only a single
partition, I think that's when the recipe of changing 42 to 07 works.
But you'll want to go off and Google that, because I don't know all the details
of when that's safe to do.

42 signals that the metadata is in control. If there is more than one partition
on the disk, then obviously the MBR partition table no longer has a valid picture
of the disk contents. It might be reconstituted with TestDisk, but that's a
stretch.

If your disks weren't Dynamic, this would be so much easier.

Paul

 

[Ed Cryer]

Test software (app or OS) doesn't get installed on a production host.
It gets installed on a test host or inside a VM. It obviously isn't
polished enough to be a release version so don't treat it as such.
Preview versions are meant to target users that will test and report on
the software, not try to use it as a production host.

So where are your backups? Use a bootable CD with an OS (e.g., Live CD)
or with utilities that let you delete and format partitions. You could
omit the formatting step as you could use the bootable CD to delete and
create partitions and then your bootable rescue CD for your backup to
restore the backed up image, or use the bootable installation CD for
Win7 if you want to start from scratch. If you don't backup, you deem
your data as trivial or reproducible. If you don't backup, now you've
been burned and it's time to think about it.

If you have backups, there should be a means to recover them from
scratch (where you have to lay down a fresh OS or replace an image). If
not and you have data you want to keep, you'll need a bootable CD with
partitioning utilities. You could then delete the Win8 partition, move
the old Win7 partition to the end of the hard disk (optionally squeeze
its size down to remove slack space), mark is NOT active, and you end up
with 1 partition at the end. Then install a fresh copy of Win7 in the
unused space at the start of the hard disk. When you boot into the new
install of Win7, you'll have the old Win7 as a data disk from where you
can retrieve your data files. When you're done with data retrieval, use
a partition manager again to delete the old Win7 partition and enlarge
the tail end of the new Win7 partition.

The problem is that the Win8 partition is set as System disc. Remove
that setting, and all will be easy-peasy.
What do you think of this idea?
Install a Linux OS on a new partition. See if that partition is now the
System disc. If so, delete Win8 partition and keep the Linux.

Ed

 

[Ed Cryer]

I don't really understand what's going on there and what the
configuration is.
Why you can't boot into Windows 7 and delete Windows 8.

At the very least, you should have a backup of the entire disk, so if
a step turns out to be wrong, you've got options.

You could try using PTEDIT32, and set the "Type" field of the partition
you want to delete, to "00" from "07". The advantage of that, is you don't
have to change any of the other fields. Setting it to 00 might, in the
case of Windows, cause Windows to ignore that partition on the next boot.
Now, whether Windows will allow you to change the current "C:" partition
in that way, I don't know. I haven't tried that.

You'd run PTEDIT32 as admin.

You can also do this from a Linux LiveCD. Fdisk has the same
capabilities as
PTEDIT32, with a less convenient interface. I like in PTEDIT32, how I
can just
edit the numbers, copy the numbers from one row to another and so on.
But this
also has a simple command for changing the type field of a primary
partition.

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb

You could also edit the partition table with a hex editor, by using "dd"
and copying the MBR into a 512 byte table, make edits, then write it back.
(There are four 16 byte fields in the MBR, which is the same info that
PTEDIT32
displays.)

Note that, changing the partition type, isn't sufficient in all cases.
I've had software "sniff" a partition, and examine the header portion of
the
partition itself, and figure out it's NTFS and mount it. So changing the
partition type to 0x00 is not a guarantee it can't be detected. I'm hoping
in this case, that Windows 7 Repair won't ferret out that partition and
change the field back to 0x07 on you.

*******

The other complicating factor here, is "Dynamic". That has the advantage of
being able to span a partition onto more than one disk, but it can
complicate
other things you do. I don't know now, if a partition table manipulation
will be enough to do the job. I've never done partition table changes on a
Dynamic Disk. The thing is, the metadata also contains information on
the disk structure...

I *never* leave partitions in dynamic mode, because I don't know the
mechanics
of dealing with issues on them! Dynamic Disks uses something like 1
megabyte
of metadata, up near one end of the disk. As far as I know, this allows
logical volume management, supports spanning across multiple physical disks
and the like. A Partition Editor would know how to safely manipulate
something
like that, but I'd have a little research to do, before I used the "Paul
approach"
on it (hex editor and sticks of dynamite) As far as I know, the
partitions
on my Win7 laptop are Basic rather than Dynamic. It's one less thing to
worry
about when I'm hacking stuff.

There is a section here on Dynamic disks. It doesn't go into enough detail
to "get out the hex editor".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logical_Disk_Manager

There are recipes out there, to convert a simple dynamic disk back to
basic,
but I don't know if they would cover Vista/Win7/Win8. The recipes rely on
the layout of the data itself, being compatible across both modes, such
that
changing the partition table value.

OK, this is what i was looking for.

http://www.win.tue.nl/~aeb/partitions/partition_types-1.html

"42 Windows 2000 dynamic extended partition marker

If a partition table entry of type 0x42 is present in the legacy partition
table, then W2K ignores the legacy partition table and uses a proprietary
partition table and a proprietary partitioning scheme (LDM or DDM). As
the Microsoft KnowledgeBase writes: Pure dynamic disks (those not
containing
any hard-linked partitions) have only a single partition table entry
(type 42)
to define the entire disk. Dynamic disks store their volume
configuration in
a database located in a 1-MB private region at the end of each dynamic
disk."

I think that's why I don't like Dynamic Disks for home usage. It prevents
me from using PTEDIT32 for a lot of things... When there is only a single
partition, I think that's when the recipe of changing 42 to 07 works.
But you'll want to go off and Google that, because I don't know all the
details
of when that's safe to do.

42 signals that the metadata is in control. If there is more than one
partition
on the disk, then obviously the MBR partition table no longer has a
valid picture
of the disk contents. It might be reconstituted with TestDisk, but that's a
stretch.

If your disks weren't Dynamic, this would be so much easier.

Paul

Paul, thank you. I feel far more enterprising and optimistic than most
people I meet, but you dwarf me. It's marvellous to stand in your shadow.
I very much appreciate what you've done here, and I'm sure you're onto
something that would work. It would take a steady hand though, and a
great deal of patience. But what you've revealed is that it can be done
given enough knowledge and expertise in the matter.

I've worked out a more pragmatic solution. I think it would work but I'd
appreciate your comments.
If I installed a Linux on a new partition, would that become the System
disc and take it off the Win8; leaving the latter fully deletable when
booted into Win7?

Ed

 

[XS11E]

"According to Microsoft, you cannot perform an uninstall of the
Windows 8 Developer Preview from a computer."
http://preview.tinyurl.com/5vjy3o4

That information is only partially correct, if the Windows 8 Preview is
installed "Normally" it is correct but I selected to install it to a
separate partition on my HD (it asks during installation), it installed
and set up a dual boot system as expected. When I wanted to remove it
I just ran bcdedit.exe to put my boot back to Win7 on drive C: and then
formatted the partition that I'd installed Windows 8 on.

Pretty easy.

FWIW, I couldn't recall how to run bcdedit.exe since I use it so rarely
so I installed EasyBCD which made it very easy.

 

[Paul]

Paul, thank you. I feel far more enterprising and optimistic than most
people I meet, but you dwarf me. It's marvellous to stand in your shadow.
I very much appreciate what you've done here, and I'm sure you're onto
something that would work. It would take a steady hand though, and a
great deal of patience. But what you've revealed is that it can be done
given enough knowledge and expertise in the matter.

I've worked out a more pragmatic solution. I think it would work but I'd
appreciate your comments.
If I installed a Linux on a new partition, would that become the System
disc and take it off the Win8; leaving the latter fully deletable when
booted into Win7?

Ed

Well, that depends on whether the "dynamic" part of what you've done, is
going to be an issue.

If there are two separate hard drives, and you're running in Linux and removing
one of them from the picture, then I don't see a problem. Your next attempted
step, would then be the "boot recovery" features of the Windows 7 installer DVD.

And you don't need to "install" Linux, as just running from the Linux LiveCD
itself is sufficient to give a "no strings attached" runtime environment.

If all these partitions are on the same disk, it's going to be a bit
more of a mess, as then, all you'll see in the primary partition table,
is the evil "42". Then, the dynamic disk metadata is running the show.
I presume Linux has a logical disk manager, will see the 42 and do the
right thing (i.e. use the metadata).

So first step, is run the Linux LiveCD, and try

sudo fdisk /dev/sda # assumes first disk is sda
p # print MBR
q # quit

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb # assumes second disk is sdb
p # print MBR
q # quit

If you

ls /dev

or the like, you can get a list of the "hda" or "sda" type entries, and
from those, you can guess at where the two disk drives ended up. That
will then allow you to formulate a couple fdisk commands for a look.
I'm guessing they'll probably be treated as "SCSI".

PTEDIT32 from windows will also allow you to review the disk contents,
look for the evil "42" and so on.

If you want to communicate what you've got, I'd take pictures of

"diskmgmt.msc" run from Windows 7 or Windows 7. That will show
what Windows sees for partitions right now.

"ptedit32.exe" run as admin, from Windows 7 or Windows 7, displaying first disk
"ptedit32.exe" run as admin, from Windows 7 or Windows 7, displaying second disk

You can post an image of all three of those in the same image, for
comments here. That's easier than typing it all in. It would be
similar in nature, to the kind of thing I posted here.

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5544/disks.gif

Paul

 

[VanguardLH]

The problem is that the Win8 partition is set as System disc. Remove
that setting, and all will be easy-peasy.
What do you think of this idea?
Install a Linux OS on a new partition. See if that partition is now the
System disc. If so, delete Win8 partition and keep the Linux.

Ed

I haven't used or experimented with Windows 8. Is Windows 8 now using
some new terminology that breaks from the past in labelling a partition
as a "system disc"? It sounds like made up terminology to replace what
used to be called the active partition (in which an OS was installed).

The BIOS loads, it finds the first physically accessible hard disk, it
reads the 446-byte bootstrap section from the MBR (the 1st sector on the
hard disk), it loads that bootstrap code into memory and passes control
to it, the bootstrap code reads the partition table to find out which is
the current partition that is marked "active", it loads the boot sector
from that active-marked partition into memory and passes control to it,
and the OS begins to load (whether it is the kernel for the OS or a
binary file uses as a boot manager it is still part of that OS in that
partition). Is your system using something different on how to select
the OS from which disk and which partition on that disk to load?

There is the newer GUID partitioning scheme along with the UEFI boot
manager built into the BIOS but I haven't had to work on those yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Boot_manager

If you are using Microsoft's dual-booting scheme, are you saying that
you cannot make the Win7 partition the "system disc"? Isn't Win7 still
listed in the boot menu? If so, can you still boot into Win7?

 

[...winston]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232(WS.10).aspx#PartitionStructures
<qp>
On Windows® Developer Preview and Windows® Server Developer Preview
configurations, the active partition is typically a separate partition that
is called a system partition.
</qp>

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...ows-8-delete-windows-8-developer-preview.html



--
....winston
msft mvp mail

"VanguardLH" wrote in message

The problem is that the Win8 partition is set as System disc. Remove
that setting, and all will be easy-peasy.
What do you think of this idea?
Install a Linux OS on a new partition. See if that partition is now the
System disc. If so, delete Win8 partition and keep the Linux.

Ed

I haven't used or experimented with Windows 8. Is Windows 8 now using
some new terminology that breaks from the past in labelling a partition
as a "system disc"? It sounds like made up terminology to replace what
used to be called the active partition (in which an OS was installed).

The BIOS loads, it finds the first physically accessible hard disk, it
reads the 446-byte bootstrap section from the MBR (the 1st sector on the
hard disk), it loads that bootstrap code into memory and passes control
to it, the bootstrap code reads the partition table to find out which is
the current partition that is marked "active", it loads the boot sector
from that active-marked partition into memory and passes control to it,
and the OS begins to load (whether it is the kernel for the OS or a
binary file uses as a boot manager it is still part of that OS in that
partition). Is your system using something different on how to select
the OS from which disk and which partition on that disk to load?

There is the newer GUID partitioning scheme along with the UEFI boot
manager built into the BIOS but I haven't had to work on those yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Boot_manager

If you are using Microsoft's dual-booting scheme, are you saying that
you cannot make the Win7 partition the "system disc"? Isn't Win7 still
listed in the boot menu? If so, can you still boot into Win7?

 

[VanguardLH]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232(WS.10).aspx#PartitionStructures
<qp>
On Windows® Developer Preview and Windows® Server Developer Preview
configurations, the active partition is typically a separate partition that
is called a system partition.
</qp>

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...ows-8-delete-windows-8-developer-preview.html

Oh yeah, I remember that backwards terminology now that Microsoft uses.
I had forgotten how Microsoft uses the naming in the opposite order of
what you expect their naming scheme implies. For them, the system
partition was the one that had the boot sector and a portion of the
kernel that then went to the boot partition to load the rest of the OS.
Instead of the boot partition being the one that started the boot
process and the system partition being the one where the rest of the
system was found, Microsoft used them in the reverse order for naming.
Go figure.

In most cases, users setup their platform so the system (booting)
partition was the same as the boot (OS system) partition. That is,
system and boot partition are the same partition. Since the OP said he
installed Win8 into one partition, that sounds like the typical setup
where system and boot partition are the same.

From the OP's first post, it looks like he thought removing Win8 from
the boot menu would get rid of Win8 yet he was still running Win8 at the
time so, of course, the active-marked partition had its OS loaded and he
couldn't reformat or resize it while Win8 was still running. Yet in
other posts it looks like he can still boot into the Win7 partition
(where also it's both the system and boot partition) which makes it
weird that Win7 won't let him delete or format the now data partition
wherein lies the install of the now dormant Win8 installation.

 

[Tony]

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Active_KillDisk_d4791.html

Paul, thank you. I feel far more enterprising and optimistic than most
people I meet, but you dwarf me. It's marvellous to stand in your shadow.
I very much appreciate what you've done here, and I'm sure you're onto
something that would work. It would take a steady hand though, and a
great deal of patience. But what you've revealed is that it can be done
given enough knowledge and expertise in the matter.

I've worked out a more pragmatic solution. I think it would work but I'd
appreciate your comments.
If I installed a Linux on a new partition, would that become the System
disc and take it off the Win8; leaving the latter fully deletable when
booted into Win7?

Ed

--
The Grandmaster of the CyberFROG

Come get your ticket to CyberFROG city

Nay, Art thou decideth playeth ye simpleton games. *Some* of us know proper
manners

Very few. I used to take calls from *rank* noobs but got fired the first day on
the job for potty mouth,

Bur-ring, i'll get this one: WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM JERK!!? We're here to help you
dickweed, ok, ok give the power cord the jiggily piggily wiggily all the while
pushing the power button repeatedly now take everything out of your computer
except the power supply and *one* stick of ram. Ok get the next sucker on the
phone.

Deirdre Straughan (Roxio) is a LIAR

Hamster isn't a newsreader it's a mistake!

El-Gonzo Jackson FROGS both me and Chuckcar

I hate them both, With useless bogus bullshit you need at least *three* fulltime
jobs to afford either one of them

I'm a fulltime text *only* man on usenet now. The rest of the world downloads the
binary files not me i can't afford thousands of dollars a month

UBB = User based bullFROGGING

Master Juba was a black man imitating a white man imitating a black man

Using my technical prowess and computer abilities to answer questions beyond the
realm of understandability

Regards Tony... Making usenet better for everyone everyday

This sig file was compiled via my journeys through usenet

 

[Tony]

http://www.killdisk.com/downloadfree.htm

Paul, thank you. I feel far more enterprising and optimistic than most
people I meet, but you dwarf me. It's marvellous to stand in your shadow.
I very much appreciate what you've done here, and I'm sure you're onto
something that would work. It would take a steady hand though, and a
great deal of patience. But what you've revealed is that it can be done
given enough knowledge and expertise in the matter.

I've worked out a more pragmatic solution. I think it would work but I'd
appreciate your comments.
If I installed a Linux on a new partition, would that become the System
disc and take it off the Win8; leaving the latter fully deletable when
booted into Win7?

Ed

--
The Grandmaster of the CyberFROG

Come get your ticket to CyberFROG city

Nay, Art thou decideth playeth ye simpleton games. *Some* of us know proper
manners

Very few. I used to take calls from *rank* noobs but got fired the first day on
the job for potty mouth,

Bur-ring, i'll get this one: WHAT'S YOUR PROBLEM JERK!!? We're here to help you
dickweed, ok, ok give the power cord the jiggily piggily wiggily all the while
pushing the power button repeatedly now take everything out of your computer
except the power supply and *one* stick of ram. Ok get the next sucker on the
phone.

Deirdre Straughan (Roxio) is a LIAR

Hamster isn't a newsreader it's a mistake!

El-Gonzo Jackson FROGS both me and Chuckcar

I hate them both, With useless bogus bullshit you need at least *three* fulltime
jobs to afford either one of them

I'm a fulltime text *only* man on usenet now. The rest of the world downloads the
binary files not me i can't afford thousands of dollars a month

UBB = User based bullFROGGING

Master Juba was a black man imitating a white man imitating a black man

Using my technical prowess and computer abilities to answer questions beyond the
realm of understandability

Regards Tony... Making usenet better for everyone everyday

This sig file was compiled via my journeys through usenet

 

[Ed Cryer]

Well, that depends on whether the "dynamic" part of what you've done, is
going to be an issue.

If there are two separate hard drives, and you're running in Linux and
removing
one of them from the picture, then I don't see a problem. Your next
attempted
step, would then be the "boot recovery" features of the Windows 7
installer DVD.

And you don't need to "install" Linux, as just running from the Linux
LiveCD
itself is sufficient to give a "no strings attached" runtime environment.

If all these partitions are on the same disk, it's going to be a bit
more of a mess, as then, all you'll see in the primary partition table,
is the evil "42". Then, the dynamic disk metadata is running the show.
I presume Linux has a logical disk manager, will see the 42 and do the
right thing (i.e. use the metadata).

So first step, is run the Linux LiveCD, and try

sudo fdisk /dev/sda # assumes first disk is sda
p # print MBR
q # quit

sudo fdisk /dev/sdb # assumes second disk is sdb
p # print MBR
q # quit

If you

ls /dev

or the like, you can get a list of the "hda" or "sda" type entries, and
from those, you can guess at where the two disk drives ended up. That
will then allow you to formulate a couple fdisk commands for a look.
I'm guessing they'll probably be treated as "SCSI".

PTEDIT32 from windows will also allow you to review the disk contents,
look for the evil "42" and so on.

If you want to communicate what you've got, I'd take pictures of

"diskmgmt.msc" run from Windows 7 or Windows 7. That will show
what Windows sees for partitions right now.

"ptedit32.exe" run as admin, from Windows 7 or Windows 7, displaying
first disk
"ptedit32.exe" run as admin, from Windows 7 or Windows 7, displaying
second disk

You can post an image of all three of those in the same image, for
comments here. That's easier than typing it all in. It would be
similar in nature, to the kind of thing I posted here.

http://img12.imageshack.us/img12/5544/disks.gif

Paul

Hello.

The evil "42" is present on one disk.
Here are the snapshots;
http://tinyurl.com/3e8dav8
http://tinyurl.com/3knjx7f
http://tinyurl.com/3sctz8l


Ed

 

[Ed Cryer]

I haven't used or experimented with Windows 8. Is Windows 8 now using
some new terminology that breaks from the past in labelling a partition
as a "system disc"? It sounds like made up terminology to replace what
used to be called the active partition (in which an OS was installed).

The BIOS loads, it finds the first physically accessible hard disk, it
reads the 446-byte bootstrap section from the MBR (the 1st sector on the
hard disk), it loads that bootstrap code into memory and passes control
to it, the bootstrap code reads the partition table to find out which is
the current partition that is marked "active", it loads the boot sector
from that active-marked partition into memory and passes control to it,
and the OS begins to load (whether it is the kernel for the OS or a
binary file uses as a boot manager it is still part of that OS in that
partition). Is your system using something different on how to select
the OS from which disk and which partition on that disk to load?

There is the newer GUID partitioning scheme along with the UEFI boot
manager built into the BIOS but I haven't had to work on those yet.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/GUID_Partition_Table
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extensible_Firmware_Interface#Boot_manager

If you are using Microsoft's dual-booting scheme, are you saying that
you cannot make the Win7 partition the "system disc"? Isn't Win7 still
listed in the boot menu? If so, can you still boot into Win7?

It boots straight into Win7. That's all I've left on the boot menu using
EasyBCD. I've also managed to shrink the obsolete Win8 partition quite a
bit and delete most files on it, but I want to get rid of it completely.

I've posted snapshots of my Disk Management ten minutes ago to Paul's
post below. They show the story well enough.

Ed

 

[Ken Blake]

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd799232(WS.10).aspx#PartitionStructures
<qp>
On Windows® Developer Preview and Windows® Server Developer Preview
configurations, the active partition is typically a separate partition that
is called a system partition.
</qp>

http://www.eightforums.com/tutorial...ows-8-delete-windows-8-developer-preview.html

Forgive my off topic post, but Winston is not a common name. Are you
the Winston I think you are? Is this your first time posting here. If
the answer to both questions is yes, welcome.