Deleting a Partition

[Boss Tweed]

So my computer has had a duel boot with Windows 7 and Windows XP (because I had a game that was only compatible with XP). Due to losing interest in the game and requiring extra space on my Win7 partition, I've just decided to do away with my XP partition. Following the instructions on the microsoft website for how to delete an OS on a second partition, I reached step 8 only to realize that there was no Edit button to edit the boot file with.

So I went to the Computer manager and tried to just delete the partition that way, but the option isn't available to me. I've attached a photo of what the Computer manager looks like. It appears that because my XP drive (D) is marked as Primary, System, and Active, I can't delete it, and I don't know how to switch my Windows 7 partition (C) to be the most important one.

In order to do a workaround and just keep the stupid XP partition, I shrank it, but when I tried to extend the Win7 partition it still didn't give me the option.

I'd really appreciate the help guys, I've run out of things to do and I can't seem to find any helpful advice online that is specific to this type of problem.

EDIT: PS-that Media drive is an entirely separate hard drive in case you were wondering

 

[innonimatu]

You installed Windows 7 inside an extended partition. While that should not be a problem traditionally Microsoft has always only allowed their systems to boot from a primary partition. A few boot files must be placed in such a partition. That's why Windows disk manager won't let you delete or format it: if you do it (using some other software) Windows 7 will no longer boot. There are ways to move win7 to the primary partition without having to reinstall, but they're somewhat convoluted.

The problem you're having with extending the win7 partition is also due to it being inside an extended partition. That's actually a contained which holds a series of (chained) "logical partitions". You can only extend the logical partitions to occupy the free space inside the container, not the space you've freed outside. You may find software which allow you to reside the whole thing, but back up to another disk before trying it.

 

[Boss Tweed]

so, if I were to upgrade my hard drive to a larger one (which I was thinking about doing in the first place) would it be possible to just move everything in the Win7 HD to the new one and boot it up from there? or would those boot files in the XP cause the same issue?