Uninstall problem

dencal · 26 Oct 2014

topgundcp said:

Post #3 does not tell anything. Every disk connected and recognized by Windows is online. There is a difference being online and Active. If you have both disks marked Active then diskpart might fail to clean it. You need to mark the disk you work on as INACTIVE. That's why I asked you to show us the screen shot of disk management

As requested.

topgundcp · 26 Oct 2014

OK, now I can see that you have both disks marked as Active. If disk 0 is your Windows 10 and is the one you want to clean:

Diskkpart
select disk 0
select par 1
inactive
select disk 0
clean.

dencal · 26 Oct 2014

topgundcp said:

OK, now I can see that you have both disks marked as Active. If disk 0 is your Windows 10 and is the one you want to clean:

Diskkpart
select disk 0
select par 1
inactive
select disk 0
clean.

Would it be possible to remove my Disk W8.1
Then load Disk W10 then follow your above instructions and make this disk inactive before cleaning.
The reason being I made a right mess when installing W10 preview.
Drag and drop did not go to the letter I wanted it to and completely wiped out my original W8.1.

topgundcp · 26 Oct 2014

It is very hard to identify which disk you have Windows 8 and which you have Windows 10. I suggest that you change the Volume Label for each to make it easier to identify.

However, I assume that Disk 0 is your Windows 10 and Disk 1 is your Windows 8. If I am correct then it is safer to physically disconnect Disk 1 from your PC then install Windows 10 on Disk 0. After Installation, reconnect Disk 1 then use the same procedure above but this time, select Disk 1 instead to mark it Inactive.

FYI, with MBR style installation, there should only be one disk marked as ACTIVE and this disk contains your Boot Manager, Recovery, System and Windows partitions.

gregrocker · 26 Oct 2014

Which OS are you booted into in the screenshot? That is the partition booting the System as signified by the System Active flags.

If you want to keep it then test that it will boot on its own by unplugging the other HD.

If you want to delete it you'll need to move the boot files to the other OS first using Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD. Then power down to unplug Disk1, reboot to test that Disk0 will boot on its own making sure it's set as first HD to boot in BIOS.

You can then delete the unwanted partition during booted reinstall of Win10, using the Drive Options at the bottom right of the drive selection screen.

dencal · 27 Oct 2014

topgundcp said:

OK, now I can see that you have both disks marked as Active. If disk 0 is your Windows 10 and is the one you want to clean:

Diskkpart
select disk 0
select par 1
inactive
select disk 0
clean.

topgundcp
Very many thanks for all your input, it has been both helpful and informative.
By increasing the volume on the disc I wished to format made it more easily identifiable. see result below.

topgundcp · 27 Oct 2014

From the screen shot above, I can see that you were able to clean disk 0. However, you still have not changed the Volume Label, both disks have the same label as New Volume. To change the label for disk 1, right click on New Volume ( C: ) -> Properties then change the Label. Here's an example, my C: drive has a label: WIN10-MSI so by looking at it, I know this partition contains Windows 10. Note that I labeled every Drive so I can tell what they are.

dencal · 27 Oct 2014

topgundcp said:

From the screen shot above, I can see that you were able to clean disk 0. However, you still have not changed the Volume Label, both disks have the same label as New Volume. To change the label for disk 1, right click on New Volume ( C: ) -> Properties then change the Label. Here's an example, my C: drive has a label: WIN10-MSI so by looking at it, I know this partition contains Windows 10. Note that I labeled every Drive so I can tell what they are.

Thanks again for yet another useful tip...if I had done that before it would have saved me a lot of aggro.

topgundcp · 27 Oct 2014

Great. I am glad we could help.

gregrocker · 27 Oct 2014

Be aware that running Repairs or Reinstall may derail your boot files to the first-in-order Primary partition, a good reason to have the OS HD as Disk0, or any partitions which must be preceding it be Logical.