2 XP's on one drive

[Steve]

I instructed a friend to reinstall xp as an upgrade to
repair damaged files after infections corruped files.
But somehow he managed to do a second instillation of xp
on the same drive, so now has 2 versions on the same
drive,
Does anyone know how to remove one of the versions of xp
without formatting the whole drive????

 

[Will Denny]

Hi

See if the following helps:

"I have two installations of XP on the same partition, how do I remove the
one I don't need?"
http://michaelstevenstech.com/xpfaq.html#two

Courtesy of MVP Michael Stevens.

--

Will Denny
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
Please reply to the News Groups


| I instructed a friend to reinstall xp as an upgrade to
| repair damaged files after infections corruped files.
| But somehow he managed to do a second instillation of xp
| on the same drive, so now has 2 versions on the same
| drive,
| Does anyone know how to remove one of the versions of xp
| without formatting the whole drive????

 

[R. C. White]

Hi, Steve.

It's a 2-step process - and it's probably quicker to do than to explain.
;^}

1. Delete the boot folder for the unwanted installation.

2. Edit C:\boot.ini to remove the line that references the unwanted
installation.

The boot folder for WinXP is \Windows (the same as for several other
versions of Windows). If a second copy of WinXP is installed into the same
volume, a different name must be used; it may be \Windows2 or \Windows(2) or
some such variation. WinXP won't let you delete its own boot folder, but if
you are running the good copy, you should easily be able to delete the other
folder, subfolders, files and all.

C:\boot.ini is a simple text file, but it is normally hidden, system and
read-only. One easy way to edit it is to go to System Properties | Advanced
| Startup and Recovery Settings, then click the Edit button. Another way
(after you've done Step 1) is to Run msconfig.exe, click the BOOT.INI tab,
then click Check All Boot Paths.

When repairing WinXP, follow Microsoft's instructions in this KB article:
How to perform an in-place upgrade (reinstallation) of Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=KB;en-us;q315341

RC

 

[steve]

Thank you very much, I will give it a go.

 

[Alex Nichol]

I instructed a friend to reinstall xp as an upgrade to
repair damaged files after infections corruped files.
But somehow he managed to do a second instillation of xp
on the same drive, so now has 2 versions on the same
drive,
Does anyone know how to remove one of the versions of xp
without formatting the whole drive????

Make sure, but he probably has both of them installed in C:\Windows -
what he has is one copy there, but two references pointing to it in the
boot.ini file. If that seems to be the case, Control Panel - System -
Advanced - Click Settings in Startup and Error, and there click Edit.
That loads boot.ini into Notepad: remove the extra line in [Operating
systems] and in [boot loader] if there are two in that , leaving
something like

[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect

(the last line will have wrapped around here)

For future reference, you don't want to do that as an upgrade. Boot
the XP CD direct. Enter Setup, and after the license agreement take
either

New Install (to have a clean start with everything including data files
deleted). When it asks you to confirm where, hit ESC; select and delete
the current partition and make a new RAW one to be formatted at the next
stage. The important point is the delete. Without that it will just go
ahead and make a new install over the top of the old one

or
Repair Installation: This will retain your existing software
installations and most settings. But Updates will have to be run again,
especially SP1 unless the CD used includes it.

Either way it is important to activate the basic XP Firewall before
you ever connect to the net to get the patches, so as to be protected
against things like the BLAST worm.