Delete OS X partition (dual boot to single boot)

[Hachitaba]

I have a mid-2011 MacBook Air. How can I delete the OS X partition entirely? In other words, go from dual boot to single boot Windows 7 64-bit?

Can I use some sort of disk imaging tool to back up my Windows partition, then use something like GParted to delete the OS X partition and make just one single partition, then restore the image to that?

What imaging tool will work for this? I've used Acronis TrueImage in the past but am concerned it may not work for Mac.

[MJL]

Originally Posted by Hachitaba

I have a mid-2011 MacBook Air. How can I delete the OS X partition entirely? In other words, go from dual boot to single boot Windows 7 64-bit?

Can I use some sort of disk imaging tool to back up my Windows partition, then use something like GParted to delete the OS X partition and make just one single partition, then restore the image to that?

What imaging tool will work for this? I've used Acronis TrueImage in the past but am concerned it may not work for Mac.

Acronis does not work with EFI (been there, done that).I am using the build in windows backup and restore. To restore from a backup image you use a bootable windows recovery CD / DVD (or windows install). I have not tried converting from a bootcamp image to a full sized hdd / sdd and then "fix" with windows the boot. I did try the other way round and failed. (have a single MBR partition on the HDD and make a backup. Then install OSX, make a bootcam partition and then try to restore into the bootcamp partition. That worked but it did not want to boot and never managed to get it to boot)

One thing I did manage to do is to have a Windows install with the 100 Mb "system partition" and then delete this 100 Mb system partition and let windows do a "repair" and finished up with a bootable single Windows 7 partition. I then used Paragon Disk Manager to shrink and extend the partition over the deleted 100Mb part of the HDD.

It is all I can offer you, let us know how it works out in the end.

[Hachitaba]

My primary goal is to just regain the hard drive space. Can I delete everything in the Mac partition and resize all of the space to the Windows partition? Or are there some essential files that control which OS gets loaded, like Boot Camp?

Are there any drive imaging tools that work with Mac that can image the entire drive, not just one partition? If so, then I could backup the drive first before testing the above.