Deleting one half of a dual boot system

[RON]

Ref. Windows XP Home
Ref. Wendows 2K server professional

Hi
I would like to delete the W 2K operating system but
maintain the "E" partition. My questions are:

1) What are the "best practices" for removing the W 2K
O.S.?
2) Is there any advantage to having two partitions ("c"
& "E") on the same hard drive or would I be better off
with just the one "C" drive?
3) If I delete the "E" partition completely will it
adversely effect the "C" partition? I'm new to Windows so
any advice you can give me will be appreciated. Thanks.

 

[ThePainter]

1,Find the disc manager if its not in control panel>admin
tools ,then goto WINDOWS\System32 look for diskmgmt.msc
and double click it.
right click on chosen partition then Format (use NTFS if
asked).
2,If you use this partition for your documents they will
be safer if your OS crashes and you have to reinstall and
you wont have to defrag as much.

 

[ThePainter]

Sorry I forgot to add you may have to edit your boot.ini.
Start>(right click)My Computer>properties>Advanced>set up
& Recovery>Settings>Edit.This is your boot.ini be
careful , your OS's are the lines beggining with "multi"
and ending with "fastdetect" you delete the OS you dont
want,but before you do any of this try to reboot after
formatting and see if your given a boot menu with both
OS's.if not dont need to do this.

 

[Rick \Nutcase\ Rogers]

Hi Ron,

I would like to delete the W 2K operating system but
maintain the "E" partition. My questions are:

1) What are the "best practices" for removing the W 2K
O.S.?

Boot the system you wish to keep, open Windows Explorer and delete the
system folders for the Operating System you wish to remove. Then open
boot.ini (a hidden system file on the root of the boot partition) and remove
the line referencing the removed OS from the [operating systems] section.
This file can be easily opened from the control panel/system/advanced
tab/startup and recovery settings/"edit" button.

2) Is there any advantage to having two partitions ("c"
& "E") on the same hard drive or would I be better off
with just the one "C" drive?

I always have at least two partitions, one for the OS and programs, one for
data files. Should something go horribly awry, you can format and reinstall
the system partition without affecting the saved data files.

3) If I delete the "E" partition completely will it
adversely effect the "C" partition?

No, but you will need third party partitioning software to expand "C" and
encompass the free space. This is not something you can do with the drive
tools included with Windows.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers aka "Nutcase" MS-MVP - Win9x
Windows isn't rocket science! That's my other hobby!

Associate Expert - WinXP - Expert Zone