Multiple XP Installs - My Screw-Up - How can I remove one?

[Honcho]

My friends,

Please bear with me!

I recently bought a Sony dual layer DVD. The Nero software install said I
had to remove Roxio Easy Cd first, which I did. Then, installed the Nero
software which includes InCD (UDF) and rebooted.

My 'puter locked-up tighter than a drum and wouldn't revert back to a
previous good install. Seems my old UDF reader (Roxio) was causing a
serious conflict with InCD.

Anyhow, after futzing around for awhile and not getting anywhere. I
rebooted using the Emergency Disk that came with my machine. Everything
seemed to go fine. Was able to get back to the desktop, cleared up the
software conflict, and rebooted.

Unfortunately, when rebooting, the process now halts and I am given the
choice between two Operating Systems - the 1st is the "new" install and
the second is my "old" one, which now "seems" to work just fine. I also
discovered that the Emergency Disk installed this "new" sys install on
Drive: D (partition), so I now have two XP installations on two separate
drives!

Question: How can I SAFELY (operative word) remove the newest XP install
from Drive: D without screwing up my system?

Hope this is clear and any and all help would be most appreciated!

Thanks,

Honcho

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Unfortunately, when rebooting, the process now halts and I am given the
choice between two Operating Systems - the 1st is the "new" install and
the second is my "old" one, which now "seems" to work just fine. I also
discovered that the Emergency Disk installed this "new" sys install on
Drive: D (partition), so I now have two XP installations on two separate
drives!

Question: How can I SAFELY (operative word) remove the newest XP install
from Drive: D without screwing up my system?

The straight forward way without using Utilities for the Lame:

1) Remove the boot option to load the new OS -

Using Notepad to edit C:\boot.ini, remove the option
involving the new partition (now called "D:"). You can tell
which partition it's on by using Disk Management and seeing
which partition on the hard drive is "Local Disk D:". Is it
partition 1 or 2 or 3 or 4? (Get to Disk Management by
rt-clking My Computer, lft-clk Manage, lft-clk Disk Management.)
Look in boot.ini under the line "[operating systems]" for the
option entry that includes "partition(x)", where x is the partition
no. of the D: partition. Remove that line. Check to see that
the "default=" line is for the partition no. that contains your
old OS. If not, set it so that it does. Then save the changed
file with ctl-s, and exit Notepad. Re-boot the system, and see
if the old OS loads. If it does, go on to 2). If it doesn't, list
the boot.ini file contents here for us.

2) Delete the D: partition using Disk Management.

Now you should be rid of the pesky new OS.

*TimDaniels*

 

[Honcho]

Tim,

Thanks for the reply!

As I figured I probably wasm't clear enough.

I have 2 HD's, partitioned C thru M drives, C drive is 80 gigs & the
others about 20 gigs each.

C drive is for Program Files
D drive is where I store MP3's
E drive is for Video Files
F drive is for Games
etc. thru M drive

Right now D drive has about 12 gigs of music files on it. So, basically
what I want to do is:

SAFELY remove ALL the OS files from D and the "new" OS when booting up.
So, do I really want to "remove" D drive from "boot.ini"? It isn't a
"new" partition, it's just where (for some unknown reason) the Emergency
Boot Disk decided to put the "new" OS. Is this any clearer?

Thanx,

Honcho

 

[Timothy Daniels]

As I figured I probably wasm't clear enough.

I have 2 HD's, partitioned C thru M drives, C drive is 80 gigs & the
others about 20 gigs each.

C drive is for Program Files
D drive is where I store MP3's
E drive is for Video Files
F drive is for Games
etc. thru M drive

Right now D drive has about 12 gigs of music files on it. So, basically
what I want to do is:

SAFELY remove ALL the OS files from D and the "new" OS when booting up.
So, do I really want to "remove" D drive from "boot.ini"? It isn't a
"new" partition, it's just where (for some unknown reason) the Emergency
Boot Disk decided to put the "new" OS. Is this any clearer?

By removing the boot option for the 2nd OS from boot.ini doesn't
make the partition that contains the unwanted OS invisible. It just
means that ntldr can't be directed there to try and load an OS. The
contents of that partition will still be visible any running OS, and files
can be dragged 'n dropped to/from it, and will still be able to get at
all your MP3 files. You can remove parts of the OS at your leisure,
or you can move the MP3s to another partition, delete D:, and
rename the new MP3 partition "D:".

*TimDaniels*

 

[Ron Martell]

Tim,

Thanks for the reply!

As I figured I probably wasm't clear enough.

I have 2 HD's, partitioned C thru M drives, C drive is 80 gigs & the
others about 20 gigs each.

C drive is for Program Files
D drive is where I store MP3's
E drive is for Video Files
F drive is for Games
etc. thru M drive

Right now D drive has about 12 gigs of music files on it. So, basically
what I want to do is:

SAFELY remove ALL the OS files from D and the "new" OS when booting up.
So, do I really want to "remove" D drive from "boot.ini"? It isn't a
"new" partition, it's just where (for some unknown reason) the Emergency
Boot Disk decided to put the "new" OS. Is this any clearer?

Thanx,

Honcho

Boot your computer from the C: partition copy of XP.

Use Windows Explorer and locate the \Windows folder on D: drive and
rename it to \WinJunk or similar. Also rename the \Program Files
folder on D: to \Program Junk or similar. Do the same with any other
folders on D: that were created by the XP Install and which do not
have any of your MP3s or other data in them.

Reboot the computer and use it for a while to make sure that all is
well. Once you are satisified that there is no "cross contamination"
between the two copies of Windows and that there are no important
files in the renamed folders on drive D: you can delete them.

After renaming the folders you can use Start - Run - MSCONFIG, go to
the BOOT.INI tab and click on the "Check all boot paths" button. That
should remove the entry for the D: partition boot.

Good luck


Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."