Vista - Suggest me Please (XP vanished after loading Vista)

Hi there,

I have a toshiba notebook preinstalled with XP. I decided to make a partition and install Vista and make it dual boot. So I used "Gparted" to resize the HDD. But after resize and before installing Vista it cannot boot XP, it was stuck at a point to load "mup.sys" file.
Then I boot from Vista DVD and installed vista on the newly created drive. Now when I boot my machine I dont see any dual boot option, it boots directly to Vista. NOw I check the two partitions, where my prevous parition on which XP was loaded is empty: 108GB free out of 109GB and there is only one file named "BOOTSECT.BAK" 8kb.
The disk management of Vista showing the following information for each partition:
----------------------------------
D:
109 GB NTFS
Healthy (System, Active, Primary Partition)

C:
40 GB NTFS
Healthy (Boot, Page file, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
------------------------------------------------------
As the System is in "D" I guess I can't format that drive, am I right? Now I want to know the following:
1. Can I format D and can use normally? Or simply do I need any file from D to boot Vista?
2. Can I merge C: with D without loosing any data (freely) and later make a parition in a different size?

Thanks
shr

At this stage of the game, I'd suggest you consult with your computer documentation to learn how to access the recovery partition, and then restore the machine back to it's factory state.

Hi Dzomlija,

thanks for your suggestion. However restoring the machine to its factory state is not what I wanted and also not an available option to me right now. I just want to make the Vista partition as a system as it is already boot partition. If I can do that then I can do whatever I want with the other parition (format, merge or resize etc.).
I am thinking whether the "Startup repair" option of Vista installation DVD can solve this problem. If there is an easy way to make the Vista partition as a system then that what I am looking.

At last I have gone through the hard step to solve my issues along with some crappy things I did meanwhile.
I installed Vista on the partition on which XP was loaded.
As I already have Vista in another partition I used vista DVD to make my PC dual boot with new and old installation.
Then I remove the old vista using EasyBCD by removing its boot manager and then format that partition.
However I have to install all those s/w and drivers again in my new partition (going a painful and time consuming process, did not come across any better idea).

Later I'll explain the crappy things before I did the above...Reading this forum helped me a lot understanding various matters related to dual boot...thanks to all the posters.