98SE to 2000 Pro Mistake

[Candice]

I installed Windows 2000 by letting the computer boot up
with the CD in the drive. It went through the installation
and I discovered that it had installed 2000 as if my
computer was just out of the box or something -- instead
of being about 4 years old. I could find my folders and
such on the HDs (I have 2). I was feeling sort of panicky
because I feared I had to reinstall a lot of programs and
such and decided to just reboot. When I booted up my
computer, I get a screen that asks me if I want to run
Windows or Windows 2000. When I clicked Windows, it ran 98
as normal and when I looked at my C: drive, I saw that it
went from a few GBs of space to about 750MB.

So, my question is how do I uninstall the improperly
installed 2000 and install it so that it works as it
should? It's not listed in Add/Remove Programs and I'm
scared to go around deleting things, since I have no idea
what I'm doing obviously. Also, is it a good idea to
backup files onto my 2nd HD or should I burn it onto a CD?

 

[Dave Patrick]

What you installed is a dual-boot. You can boot with your Win98 startup disk
and issue the command
sys C:
this will rewrite the boot sector, then you can delete these files boot.ini,
ntldr, ntdetect.com, bootsect.dos, pagefile.sys and possibly ntbootdd.sys
from the root of the System partition C:\., then you can delete the Windows
2000 boot partition or \winnt directory (whichever the case)

Save yourself some time and trouble, given that you'll more than likely end
up with an unstable OS with all the remnants/ corruption left behind from
the upgrade. Best to blow it all away and go for the clean install.

To do a clean install, either boot the Windows 2000 CD-Rom or setup disks.
The set of four install disks can be created from your Win2k CD-rom; change
to the \bootdisk directory on the cd-rom and execute makeboot.exe (from dos)
or makebt32.exe (from 32 bit) and follow the prompts.

When you get to the point, delete the existing NTFS and or other partitions
found. After you delete the partition(s) abort the install, then again
restart the pc booting the CD-Rom or setup disks to avoid unexpected drive
letter assignments with your new install.

During Windows 2000 setup, at some point, will want to confirm the previous
operating system for the upgrade; at that point you'll simply insert the
qualified product install CD for it to verify. Then the install will
proceed.

Check the pc, mb or hardware manufacturer's web site for the latest bios and
or Windows 2000 drivers for your devices.



--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows NT/2000 Operating Systems]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect.

:
| I installed Windows 2000 by letting the computer boot up
| with the CD in the drive. It went through the installation
| and I discovered that it had installed 2000 as if my
| computer was just out of the box or something -- instead
| of being about 4 years old. I could find my folders and
| such on the HDs (I have 2). I was feeling sort of panicky
| because I feared I had to reinstall a lot of programs and
| such and decided to just reboot. When I booted up my
| computer, I get a screen that asks me if I want to run
| Windows or Windows 2000. When I clicked Windows, it ran 98
| as normal and when I looked at my C: drive, I saw that it
| went from a few GBs of space to about 750MB.
|
| So, my question is how do I uninstall the improperly
| installed 2000 and install it so that it works as it
| should? It's not listed in Add/Remove Programs and I'm
| scared to go around deleting things, since I have no idea
| what I'm doing obviously. Also, is it a good idea to
| backup files onto my 2nd HD or should I burn it onto a CD?