Windows 10: Convert dual boot install to normal boot

After several weeks of testing I'm ready to go full on Windows 10 and want to get rid of Windows 7 but I have some partitioning issues I want to clean up. I currently have Windows 7 on drive 0 (360 GB) and Windows 10 on drive 1 (500 GB). Both are SATA drives and RAID is enabled in the bios but not active.

What I think I'd like to do is simply swap the drives physically so that Drive 0 has my current Windows 10 install on it and make it primary boot active etc. The drive with Windows 7 on it would become drive 1 and I would delete the Windows 7 partition and re-partition it with a clean empty partition just for extra space.

My first question is does anyone see any issues with swapping the drives as I've outlined?

Second question, any advantage to using this drive configuration in a RAID setup?

Thanks!!!

:)

 

Win 10 clean install on existing/added partition

You can't do this. The upgrade is only allowed as an upgrade. If you want to dual-boot, you have to go to the store and purchase a copy of Windows 10. Upgrades aren't allowed to be converted into dual-boot situations.

 

Windows 10 in continual repair loop after MS update

I'm hopeful it will work for you as it has for me many times when all else has been tried. It basically creates a new boot manager and seeing the old install knits it into a Dual Boot as is standard. Then if the old install is functional beyond it's old
boot files, it will normally start and run. If so then with UEFI it only requires setting the old install as the default in Dual Boot menu, deleting the rescue install's partition and recovering back the space. In Legacy one must additionally check the System
partition is not the partition being deleted or move it first. Later you can remove the Dual Boot menu in EasyBCD or System Configuration Boot tab.

 

You can just physically swap the drives as you posted and the just format the drive with Windows 7 on it and use it for storage or a backup drive. I do not see the advantage of using Raid in this situation. You might want to format the Windows 7 drive first.

 

Ok cool. Thanks for the vote of confidence there Gary *Smile I think what I'll do is move the Windows 10 drive to the first SATA position (drive 0) and leave the other drive disconnected to make sure I can boot without it. I'm still concerned that Windows 10's dual boot code is gonna rain on my parade. If everything goes ok then I'll hook the Windows 7 drive up and re-partition it.

Thanks!

 

You shouldn't necessarily have to swap drives,
You could delete W7 from the boot loader and format the partition; Windows 10 should boot by default.

 

I kinda figured that was possible but what about the boot order in the bios? Does it matter? I.E. would I need to modify it?

 

Doesn't matter. You'll only have one bootable OS, it'll default to that one.

 

Sweet! I'll give it a shot!

 

Make sure you have your backups in order! *Smile

 

I have W8.1 and W10 on separate SSD's on the same desktop. I swap them in and out as needed, don't have both of them inserted at the same time. I also have a HD that I use as a data drive. When I swap out the SSD's and if I don't remember to go into BIOS and select the boot drive, the computer will attempt to boot from the , non bootable, data drive. Right now it defaults to Sata0, the data drive if the previously selected ssd is not present. I was thinking like the OP and was going to swap the sata cables so that the data drive is on connection sata2. Win8.1 on sata0 and W10 on sata1. Hoping that this will eliminate the need to go to bios every time I swap. But you are saying this is not necessary? Tx

 

Your case is not the same as the OP - but in your case you can setup the default boot order in your bios setting

and yes I would make the data disk the highest sata port number - do not forget the sata CD/DVD

 

So there was one wrinkle. Only one drive can be marked as "System" and that's where boot is handled regardless. In my case it was the Windows 7 drive. I tried disabling the SATA controller for that drive and sure enough it would not boot the Windows 10 drive. What I had to do was run the REPAIR option off my install disk and choose "ADVANCED" then "AUTOMATIC REPAIR - Fix problems that keep Windows from loading" and viola! It marked the Windows 10 partition as SYSTEM and after reboot it loaded normally.

Then I re-enabled SATA 0 and only then did I delete the old Windows 7 partitions off the old drive and re-partition it with a clean NTFS for data

Now I have a 100% Windows 10 machine Thanks for the help guys!