Getting system selection screen when booting up new computer

[Zeppo]

I picked up a refurbished HP desktop for my FIL and I'm setting it up for
him The system cam with Win XP Pro SP3 installed. However on boot up it goes
into a screen that displays the following:

Please select the operating System to start:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
System Restore

Use the up/down arrow keys to highlight your choice.
Press ENTER to Chose.


From the Storage management screen it appear there is a 5 GB partition
without a drive letter as the first partition on the C: drive, and the
Windows partition behind that. I'm assuming that is where the system restore
info is.

I really don't want my 87 YO father in law to have to make that choice. I'm
sure one of these times he will choose 'System Restore'. How can I make this
screen not appear and have it boot right into windows?

TIA,
Jon

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

I picked up a refurbished HP desktop for my FIL and I'm setting it up for
him The system cam with Win XP Pro SP3 installed. However on boot up it goes
into a screen that displays the following:

Please select the operating System to start:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
System Restore

Use the up/down arrow keys to highlight your choice.
Press ENTER to Chose.


From the Storage management screen it appear there is a 5 GB partition
without a drive letter as the first partition on the C: drive, and the
Windows partition behind that. I'm assuming that is where the system restore
info is.

I really don't want my 87 YO father in law to have to make that choice. I'm
sure one of these times he will choose 'System Restore'. How can I make this
screen not appear and have it boot right into windows?

If I acquired a used computer, no matter who previously owned it, the
first thing I would do with it would be to reinstall the operating
system cleanly. You have no idea how the computer has been maintained,
what has been installed incorrectly, what is missing, what viruses and
spyware there may be, etc. I wouldn't want to live with somebody
else's mistakes and problems, possibility of kiddy p0rn, etc., and I
wouldn't recommend that anyone else do so either.

You're playing with fire if you don't reinstall Windows cleanly.

 

[Time Lady]

I picked up a refurbished HP desktop for my FIL and I'm setting it up for
him The system cam with Win XP Pro SP3 installed. However on boot up it
goes into a screen that displays the following:

Please select the operating System to start:

Microsoft Windows XP Professional
System Restore

Use the up/down arrow keys to highlight your choice.
Press ENTER to Chose.


From the Storage management screen it appear there is a 5 GB partition
without a drive letter as the first partition on the C: drive, and the
Windows partition behind that. I'm assuming that is where the system
restore info is.

I really don't want my 87 YO father in law to have to make that choice.
I'm sure one of these times he will choose 'System Restore'. How can I
make this screen not appear and have it boot right into windows?

TIA,
Jon

Control Panel>System>Advanced tab>look for the startup & recovery section &
click settings, remove the tick from 'time to display operating systems'.

hth,
Time Lady.

 

[Zeppo]

If I acquired a used computer, no matter who previously owned it, the
first thing I would do with it would be to reinstall the operating
system cleanly. You have no idea how the computer has been maintained,
what has been installed incorrectly, what is missing, what viruses and
spyware there may be, etc. I wouldn't want to live with somebody
else's mistakes and problems, possibility of kiddy p0rn, etc., and I
wouldn't recommend that anyone else do so either.

You're playing with fire if you don't reinstall Windows cleanly.

Ken,
The OS was installed by the vendor that did the refurb, no the previous
user.

Thanks,
Jon

 

[Zeppo]

Control Panel>System>Advanced tab>look for the startup & recovery section
& click settings, remove the tick from 'time to display operating
systems'.

hth,
Time Lady.

Thanks, but that didn't do it. I also tried removing the tick just below it,
'time to system restore', and it still displays the screen.

Jon

 

[Ken Blake, MVP]

Ken,
The OS was installed by the vendor that did the refurb, no the previous
user.

But the problem you describe clearly indicates that there is at least
one thing wrong about the installation. If there's one, there may be
others, and, in my view, that vendor shouldn't be trusted. I would
still recommend reinstalling.

 

[Zeppo]

Then they didn't do it correctly because when the system restore software
is on the hard drive, it's usually activated by pressing the F10 or some
other key during the POST tests. Also typically the partition with the
system restore software is hidden from view when running the OS and can
only be seen when using the disk management. So I would do as Ken has
suggested and use the restore software to reinstall the OS.


--

Roy Smith
Windows 7 Professional
Thunderbird 3.1.4
Sunday, October 17, 2010 5:21:52 AM

I was using disk management to see the other partition. That is the only way
to see it. I have no doubt in my mind that this was a new install. Windows
made me go through the final setup steps of creating users and setting up
date and time when I first got into it. I checked the file system and the
registry and there was nothing in there that isn't there from a new install.

Is there any risk deleting that small partition? I really don't need to keep
the restore info as I can reinstall from original XP-pro cds. I have several
extra copies not that we've wiped some of our systems and installed Win 7.

Jon

 

[SC Tom]

I was using disk management to see the other partition. That is the only
way to see it. I have no doubt in my mind that this was a new install.
Windows made me go through the final setup steps of creating users and
setting up date and time when I first got into it. I checked the file
system and the registry and there was nothing in there that isn't there
from a new install.

Is there any risk deleting that small partition? I really don't need to
keep the restore info as I can reinstall from original XP-pro cds. I have
several extra copies not that we've wiped some of our systems and
installed Win 7.

Jon

If you delete the partition, you'll still get the option, but now your FIL
will get an error if he accidentally selects it.
Look in your BIOS and see if there is an option to not display restore
options on boot-up.
Is that line listed in boot.ini? If not, then there isn't anything Windows
can do to eliminate it since it's not a Windows option. If you can't get rid
of it in BIOS, then your best option is to completely format the drive, make
it all one partition, then install Windows from your original CD. Before
doing that, be sure to download any machine-specific drivers and write them
to another CD so you can install them after installing Windows. Makes things
a heck of a lot easier

 

[Time Lady]

Thanks, but that didn't do it. I also tried removing the tick just below
it, 'time to system restore', and it still displays the screen.

Jon

Try setting the count to zero as well & see whether that does anything if
not then there's a problem. I have HP desktop & mine used to show a screen
saying similar, in my case the choices are/were XP & recovery console but
doing the above removed the choices screen & allowed me to boot into Windows
directly upon start-up.
hth.

TL.

 

[Zeppo]

Try setting the count to zero as well & see whether that does anything if
not then there's a problem. I have HP desktop & mine used to show a screen
saying similar, in my case the choices are/were XP & recovery console but
doing the above removed the choices screen & allowed me to boot into
Windows directly upon start-up.
hth.

TL.

Interesting. It seems to be ignoring whatever I put in there. I changed it
to 5 seconds, then 15, then 0, then unticked it again. Whatever I put in
that field, it still brings up the screen and counts down from 30 seconds.

Jon

 

[SC Tom]

Interesting. It seems to be ignoring whatever I put in there. I changed it
to 5 seconds, then 15, then 0, then unticked it again. Whatever I put in
that field, it still brings up the screen and counts down from 30 seconds.

Jon

That's because it's not a Windows function. It's a BIOS function using the
restore/rebuild partition.
If it can't be turned off in BIOS, then you can either re-install Windows
like I suggested earlier, or you could try rebuilding the whole thing using
that partition, and seeing if that then takes care of the prompt.
Usually, if the installation was correct the first time, you wouldn't see
that menu at all. What you MIGHT see is a prompt at the bottom of the POST
screen saying something like "F12=System Restore" but not the options menu.

 

[Peter Foldes]

Jon


Clearly something wrong wit the installation of your OS. Reformat and re-install .Do
not waste your time trying to figure out how to fix it. Not worth the effort.
Re-install with a clean reformat

--
Peter
Please Reply to Newsgroup for the benefit of others
Requests for assistance by email can not and will not be acknowledged.
This posting is provided "AS IS" with no warranties, and confers no rights.
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

 

[Zeppo]

That's because it's not a Windows function. It's a BIOS function using the
restore/rebuild partition.
If it can't be turned off in BIOS, then you can either re-install Windows
like I suggested earlier, or you could try rebuilding the whole thing
using that partition, and seeing if that then takes care of the prompt.
Usually, if the installation was correct the first time, you wouldn't see
that menu at all. What you MIGHT see is a prompt at the bottom of the POST
screen saying something like "F12=System Restore" but not the options
menu.

That's what I'm going to do. Unfortunately, I was hoping to clean this up
without doing that as my free time is getting more and more scarce as a
project at work heats up. I was hoping to get this back to my FIL this week
but it's just not going to happen. Leaving for FL. in the morning. Hopefully
I'll get some weekend to get this done.

Thanks for the assist,
Jon

Jon