SCA-HOA :
NEVER DONE THIS BEFORE SO HOPEFULLY IT GOES THRU OK - firstly thanx for the response
Background - Laptop originally had XP & Vista loaded and operational and I was given an option when it turned on.
I updated with W7 - thought it would remove both & replace with W7 - XP still there and not creating a problem.
All files are backed up.
That is more like it
Your situation is now fully understandable.
You have/had a laptop preinstalled with dual boot XP and Vista.
You then installed Win7 above Windows Vista. (replacing Vista)
This explains why you have now Win7 and also Win XP.
Now...
Having Windows XP dual boot with Win7 usually should not bother the system unless if you do not want to have XP anymore or something is not working properly anymore.
If you want to destroy XP and have only Win7, it is best that you clean your system by fresh installing Win7..not replacing, not repairing...really from scratch
To do this, it is important to really back up every data you see important (I understood that you did this already)
Boot from your Win7 CD/DVD...follow the instruction there...remember to remove or to format all partitions which contain WinXP and your old Win7...
Like mentioned before...you need to know where is what...where is your XP...where is your Win7...etc..
Here you will clean your previous OSs.
Then install Win7.
Beside backing-up your data...make sure that you have all the drivers too..
I dunno if this help:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWbaeJBL93o
Another possibility to remove XP has been already explained by Shadow_07....although I would prefer to install Win7 from scratch...
The problem here is not the XP...but your previous Vista...I do not like to install an OS over an OS (Win7 over Vista)...I like it clean
If you really want to learn...do Shadow_07 advice...after that also still do Win7 installation from scratch although it is not needed anymore..to see how the Windows installation is done..
Knowledge to do both on your own is considered important from my opinion.