2 Hard Drives with Windows 7

[Accessless]

Right If you have read my last post in the "Why am I using Vista?" topic then you will know that my copy of Vista has died. I shall shed no tears for it. For those who haven't read it, now you know. Right getting to the point I have two hard drives the first had Vista on it, the second had Win7. I wanted to reclaim the space on the first drive but Win7 won't let me format. Before I do it forcibly is their any reason why it's claiming that HDD1 is a system disk? Also as for as I can tell it doesn't count the HDD that it is installed onto (HDD2) as a system disk.

Confusion Prevention Key:
HDD1 930Gb Windows Vista Installation
HDD2 75Gb Win7 Installation

[patio]

Depends on what methods you did to get to this point...
If you installed 7 with the Vista drive still connected then even if Vista took a dump the boot files and remnants of Vista still exist in th e root drive of C:...

If you let us know what exactly your goals are for this machine perhaps we can assist further...

[Geek-9pm]

Me too. I have problems with Win 7 and other OS on the same boot loader.
In the future I am going to put Win7 on a HDD tray and use it without the other OS HDD present.

Mobile swap trays.(NOT USB box.)
http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/category/category_slc.asp?CatId=285&name=Removable%20Drive%20Trays

[patio]

It's not Win7 that's the issue...
It's if you set it up properly to begin with...

[Geek-9pm]

It's not Win7 that's the issue...
It's if you set it up properly to begin with...

You are right!

But I am gong to use the hardware solution. My small brain can visually grasp the concept of using two disparate OS on two HDDs that are never both in one PC at the same time.

Otherwise, Win 7 puts restrictions on how to alter partition size and change boot order that have me snowed under. I finally got BOOT.INI working the way I want and then Win7 tells me my accumulated knowledge is now folklore of the past generation.
By the time I get to understand Win7, my free version will have expired. Or only let me have two hours a day. Which may be all I can take.

[Accessless]

Patio is right, Win7 creates the boot.ini on any other hard drive that it can find and then prevents you from formating them. In short if you intall Win7 make sure that you disconnect any other memory storage device. Or else Win7 will eat it!

[patio]

Let me clarify...
Say i have a Vista machine with 2 HDD's.
If i install Win7 to the 2nd HDD in the installation process Win7 is going to write certain files to the root sector of the C: drive. ( Actually any flavor of Windows will do this ).
Now when i boot i will be given the option of which OS i want to boot....

However there is a way around this that keeps both OS's seperate from each other...

Remove the Vista HDD and hook up the 2nd drive as master.
Install Win7 to it and re-boot a few times to make sure the install worked properly.
Disconnect the Win7 HDD and replace it with the Vista drive as master then hook up the Win7 drive as slave.

Now using the BIOS at boot time you can select which HDD you want to boot to

A clean but elegant solution that works...

[Geek-9pm]

Remove the Vista HDD and hook up the 2nd drive as master.
Install Win7 to it and re-boot a few times to make sure the install worked properly.
Disconnect the Win7 HDD and replace it with the Vista drive as master then hook up the Win7 drive as slave.

Now using the BIOS at boot time you can select which HDD you want to boot to

Thanks Patio. Now I get it!   

[patio]

You're more than Welcome Geek9...