Dual Boot XP and Vista - How to Remove XP?

[Guest]

I want to experiment with Vista on my XP (current C: drive) computer. I am
using Acronis to make a partition for Vista. After experimenting with Vista I
want to be able to delete either the XP or Vista drive. If I elect to get rid
of XP, how do I do that so Vista becomes the default drive on C:? My
understanding is that the Vista boot manager (BCD) will record the presence
of 2 OS’s (Vista and XP) and will take over boot operations from the XP boot
manager. and that whichever drive I boot to- Vista or XP- will see itself as
C: and the other as D:. How do I delete the XP partition and format it for
use within Vista? When I do delete XP, my understanding is that the Vista
boot manager will still give the option of booting to an unbootable and not
present XP volume. How do I use BCDedit to fix this issue?

Hope I am clear. Many thanks in advance

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Ok, you basically have the gist of it. When you install Vista, its
bootloader will install to the active volume (that which currently houses
XP). When it's time for removal of one or the other, you need to be
cognizant of this fact.

Should you decide to remove Vista, it's as simple as formatting the drive
that contains it. Then boot with the XP disk, enter the Recovery Console by
hitting 'r' when prompted and running fixmbr and fixboot from the prompt.
This will return you to the XP bootloader.

Should you decide to remove XP, it's a bit more complicated. You can simply
delete the XP system folders while running Vista. This will retain the
bootloader and you can run bcdedit from an elevated command prompt to remove
the entry that refers to it. Or, you can run disk manager (diskmgmt.msc) and
make the Vista volume action, then boot with the Vista DVD and run a startup
repair. After confirming that the boot files are now on the Vista volume,
you can format the XP volume.

Bcdedit usage:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...4f45-4a05-bd86-c99211a93dd91033.mspx?mfr=true

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com