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My laptop currently has 2 partitions C: and D. Somehow, when I had reformatted, XP had ended up on the D: drive and boot.ini , ntldr, etc.. are on the C: partition. Being an idiot that I am, I ignored it and continued to use my laptop for a few months now. Now that I need to free up a partition, I can't simply format one partition. So how do I move my boot volume to the system volume in a case where formatting isn't an option?
You cannot do that. You will have to format your pc back and install windows again. That is the only solution I think will work. Just format your pc back and this time format both the partition first. Then choose one among them to install windows on it. I think this will be more appropriate. You had installed windows in wrong partition, so already your data is deleted. You cannot do much to recover that. Just run a clean setup once again and test back. I think that will be more helpful.
There are no tools available through which you can simply move the boot partition. The most you can do is try to re-install windows back again from scratch which would really work. The boot partition has important windows file which is not able to copy paste. And even if you manage to do that, your system will not work properly. It will be unstable. There are some good partition manager software available on the web which you can use to fix issues like this.
would it be possible to move boot.ini, ntldr, etc... to the other partition?
The thing which you are asking is possible in linux, not in windows. There are many dependable files which even moved will not function properly. All you have to do is run a clean setup from scratch and the issue will be resolved. This is one of the best way to fix the issue. Some tools like DriveImage XML are quiet good in making a clone image of system partition and then restoring it back. You can use it for future safety. Instead of installing everything manually you can simply create a clone image and use it for restoration.
It is possible to move the files like boot.ini, ntdetect.com and ntldr. System boot here mostly depends on this kind of files. You will have to manage the partition size and re-assign the active partition. There is no tool available here which can do this automatically. It is a complete manual process and you have to specifically move them. If anything misses or copied wrongly then you will land upon boot error. Just try to run a fresh setup back again which is a good choice for novice.
What matters here is the set of boot files. They are one which tells the bios from where to boot. Some motherboard comes with option to choose the boot location. But in ample of them you cannot manage boot through bios. You have to go with the regular form of installing windows which is effective as well as reliable solution. There are easy to use disk partition software on web which works really well for shrinking or extending the partition.
It's strange how every had got mixed up like this to begin with. Prior to my last format, my current C: was actually my D: and my current D: was my C. So when i formatted my C: and reinstalled windows, it had switched the partition drive letters around. It copied the boot files to the D: partition, and renamed it C: and then installed windows on the C: partition and renamed it D. That's how i ended up in this spot. Such a pain in the ass.. I'm trying to install Linux without destroying my usable copy of windows simply because I need to be able to use all the programs on windows for work, etc.. while I am still setting up Linux
It is necessary that you start working from scratch. First delete both the partition. Then create the first one which will be the primary partition that has windows on it. The second will be your data partition. Run the setup. You can also create partition through Disk Management. Till today there are no options available which allows you to migrate your windows from one partition to another. This can make your job more complicated if done manually. So just follow the routine way of setup.