When Win 7 was available for download, I installed it on the D partition of my laptop. But stopped messing about it and now running out of diskspace so want it gone. Google tells me that I need to wipe the partition it's installed on, but isn't there a better way to do it?

Maybe delete the boot entry and then delete the files on the D partition?

I'd say you'd have to wipe the partition. You could then extend your current partition into the free space, or leave it as it is.

Yeah, wipe the partition and reformat. Quick format should complete in under 10 seconds...

Ok. Reason I wanted to avoid formatting is the kerfuffle in having to copy all my other files across prior to formatting, so I'd rather try to delete the files.

Anyway, after formatting, I guess I'll still have the boot selection screen come up? Boot.ini doesn't show anything about win 7, so how can I sort this issue too?

I don't know about this properly, but when I removed Ubuntu from my PC the boot loader (GRUB) would crash when it failed to pick up the second OS, leaving me with a black screen and cursor after the initial POST.

I had to start again from scratch and re-install Windows to get it to boot, having failed to get the repair disc to work. Thankfully I had little on it at the time, as I'd only had Win 7 RC on there, and was waiting for the full version before putting everything over.

In that case, yes, you can just delete all the files for Windows 7 on that drive, Just make sure that you have the security settings correct, so that you can read the data from your other OS.

As to the boot screen, you could try booting from your main Windows disk and repairing the MBR.

Have you tried looking at & changing the "Boot" tab in msconfig to remove the obsolete boot entries?

I did but didn't spot anything other the winxp entry. Will have a further look into things.

Had to use EasyBCD to remove 7 entry and convert it to boot off XP.

But now I can't delete Win 7 so looks like I'm having to backup and format the partition.

Uber-gayness.