Remove your Windows 8.1 installation and just keep Windows 7 step by step:
Note: It is recommended that you perform an Image
Backup of your entire drive before you start. Should something go wrong
you can use the backup to restore your dual boot configuration and try
again.
1) Boot into Windows 7
2) Run ‘Msconfig’: Click on the Windows + R key to launch the ‘Run’
window, in the ‘Open’ box enter: msconfig and click the ‘OK’ button.
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3) In the System Configuration window, select the Boot tab.
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4) Change the ‘Default OS from Windows 8.1 to Windows 7 as follows:
a) Click on the Windows 7 entry to highlight it. Click on the ‘Set as
default’ button.
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b) Click on the ‘Windows 8.1’ entry and click on the ‘Delete’ button.
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c) Click on the ‘Apply’ button, then click ‘OK’ to exit.
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d) When prompted click the ‘Restart’ button to reboot the computer. You should now go / boot directly to Windows 7.
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5) How to reclaim the disk space used by Windows 8.1:
You have 3 choices.
The 1st is to delete the Windows 8.1 partition and add more space to Windows 7 by expanding the Windows 7 partition.
The 2nd choice is to re-format the Windows 8.1 partition and use it for additional storage space.
The 3rd choice is to use some of the
space to increase the size of your Windows 7 partition and the remaining
space to create a new partition. I will be using the 3rd choice for
this article as it overs some of the same steps you need to perform in
the first 2 choices.
a) Open ‘Disk management’ by clicking on ‘Start’ / right click on ‘Computer’ and select / click on the ‘Manage’ option.
b) In the left pane click on ‘Disk Management’.
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c) Right click on the Windows 8 partition and Select ‘Delete Volume’.
Note: If Windows 8.1 was installed on a ‘Logical’ Volume then you
need to delete the ‘Extended partition’ named ‘Free space’ (which will
return it to ‘Unallocated’ space). However if Windows 8.1 was installed
on a ‘Primary’ partition then all you need to do is delete the partition
to return it to ‘Unallocated’ space prior to extending the Windows 7
partition.
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Click ‘Yes’ when prompted to continue.
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Click ‘Yes’ when prompted to delete the extended partition.
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6) The next step is to ‘Extend’ (increase) the size of your Windows 7 partition.
With ‘Disk Management’ still open, right click on the Windows 7
partition and select the ‘Extend Volume ’ option. Click the ‘Next’
button when prompted by the ‘Extend Volume Wizard’.
I’m going to add another 50GB to the Windows 7 partition (50 x 1024 = 51200 binary value to enter).
Enter the value / amount of space (this is a binary number) you want to add to the Windows 7 partition.
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Click the ‘Next’ button and then click ‘Finish’ to increase the
partition size. You will now notice (as shown below the ‘Unallocated’
space is now down from 200GB to 150GB and the Windows 7 partition is now
50GB larger.
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Finally
you need to create an ‘Extended’ partition with logical volume. Note
that Windows can have no more than 3 primary partitions, therefor the
unallocated space in this example will be used to create an ‘Extended’
partition and a single logical volume assigning a drive letter so you
can make use of the remaining unallocated space.
Right click on the ‘Unallocated’ space and select the ‘New Simple Volume ’ option.
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The ‘New Simple Volume Wizard’ window is displayed, click the
‘Next’ button. Accept the default value in ‘Simple volume size in MB’
box (this will utilized all the remaining unallocated space) and click
the ‘Next’ button’.
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Assign
a drive letter and click ‘Next’. Assign a ‘Volume label’ (name = Data
in this example) and click next. Note: SSD drive users should always
perform a quick format, a better choice for hard drive users is to
remove the check mark which will result in a “Full format” being
performed.
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Click ‘Finish’ to format the partition.
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That’s it, you’re done.
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