Remove Dual Boot

[David Berry]

I have two hard drives in my system. The first has Windows XP Media Center.
From Windows XP I installed Vista and chose the second hard drive so now my
machine comes up with a dual boot screen. I did this so I could try out
Vista but still be able to use XP in case I didn't like it. Now I'm ready
to upgrade my Windows XP to Vista. How do I remove the dual boot (and then
delete vista from the second drive) so the machine boots normally again
before I do my upgrade?

Thanks

 

[Eran]

Why would you want to do an upgrade when you have a clean install?

If you don't want to see the dual boot screen, there is an option to disable
it or reduce the timer. Check the help.

Whatever you do, don't format your c: drive as you won't be able to boot
your computer again even if Vista is installed on the second harddrive.

Eran


I have two hard drives in my system. The first has Windows XP Media Center.
From Windows XP I installed Vista and chose the second hard drive so now my
machine comes up with a dual boot screen. I did this so I could try out
Vista but still be able to use XP in case I didn't like it. Now I'm ready
to upgrade my Windows XP to Vista. How do I remove the dual boot (and then
delete vista from the second drive) so the machine boots normally again
before I do my upgrade?

Thanks

 

[JerryM \(ID\)]

Check your BIOS to see that your CD drive boots first,
Install the Vista CD and reboot.
Delete all partitions to clean your hard drives,
Then create new partitions and run the install
Format NTFS if it calls for it..

 

[David Berry]

I have a new Dell PC. It came with a free upgrade to Vista that came in the
mail today. The CD they sent me has all the driver, bios and software
updates for this PC. I also have a copy of Vista that I got for being a
part of the Beta testing. I did the dual boot so I could see how it ran on
this PC, what drivers and software didn't work or needed upgrading etc. I
only planned on keeping the PC this way until Dell sent the upgrade CD. Now
that they have I want just one OS on the PC (I plan to upgrade Windows XP
Media Center to Vista Home Premium). The OS and Apps will be on the C:
drive and my files, data, music etc will be on the D: drive. I don't plan
to format the C: drive.

The reason I don't want to keep the dual boot is because I don't have a need
to switch back and forth between the 2 OS's and I don't like having to
reboot to use Vista and then reboot again to use Windows XP. Also, getting
rid of the dual boot means I don't have to keep making sure that my software
is upgraded on both OSs each time a patch comes out or having to install
Office on both OS's and then having to remember which OS I checked my email
(Outlook) on if I'm looking for one. etc ...

Where can I find the option to disable dual boot that you're talking about?
I don't want to just reduce the timer. Can I just run Fix MBR or Fix Boot
from a CMD prompt to get rid of it?

 

[David Berry]

I don't want to format the drives. I want to keep Windows XP on the C
drive. All I want to do is get rid of the dual boot screen at start up (and
then I can format the D Drive that has Vista) so that it boots to Windows XP
like it normally would.

 

[JerryM \(ID\)]

OK,
Right click My Computer, select properties,
Click the Advanced tab and under Startup and Recovery, click the Settings
button,
Click the Edit button, and under [operating systems]
delete the line with Vista in it.
Ok your way back out and Reboot.

 

[Keith]

Here is what I've done in the past and it works very nicely.

Download and install in XP, VistaBootPro3.1 beta from:
http://www.pro-networks.org/vistabootpro/
Boot into XP
Open My Computer > right click the drive partition Vista is installed on >
click Format.
Use VistaBootPro to delete the Vista Boot Manager.
Delete the hidden BOOT folder on C:
Delete the files on C: boot.bak, bootmgr, bootsect.bak

Another way that I haven't tried:

Boot into XP
Delete/format the Vista partition
Reboot from XP CD and enter Recovery Console. Run fixboot. (May also need
fixmbr.)
Delete the hidden BOOT folder on C:
Delete the files on C: boot.bak, bootmgr, bootsect.bak

Good luck!

Keith

 

[Rock]

I have two hard drives in my system. The first has Windows XP Media
Center. From Windows XP I installed Vista and chose the second hard drive
so now my machine comes up with a dual boot screen. I did this so I could
try out Vista but still be able to use XP in case I didn't like it. Now
I'm ready to upgrade my Windows XP to Vista. How do I remove the dual boot
(and then delete vista from the second drive) so the machine boots normally
again before I do my upgrade?

From within XP format the drive that has Vista on it, and use VistaBootPro
to restore the XP boot loader. Then do the upgrade.
http://www.vistabootpro.org/

 

[Eran]

I saw Jerry outlined the steps for you to disable or modify the dual boot
screen. Keep in mind that this is not something that you uninstall. It's
always there and starts showing when you install more than one operating
system.

You don't need to uninstall Vista from your D: drive. You can just run the
upgrade on your XP and then you'll have two Vista's installed. If you don't
plan on formatting your D: drive, then why not keep it to test out new
drivers and software before installing them on your "main" Vista?

Just because you have two (or more) OS installed, doesn't mean you have to
always keep them all up to date and install each piece of software on all of
them. Do this only on your "main" OS. Use the others for testing and running
apps that don't run on Vista. If you've go the disk space, why not?

Whatever you decide to do, don't forget to backup everything.

Eran



I have a new Dell PC. It came with a free upgrade to Vista that came in the
mail today. The CD they sent me has all the driver, bios and software
updates for this PC. I also have a copy of Vista that I got for being a
part of the Beta testing. I did the dual boot so I could see how it ran on
this PC, what drivers and software didn't work or needed upgrading etc. I
only planned on keeping the PC this way until Dell sent the upgrade CD. Now
that they have I want just one OS on the PC (I plan to upgrade Windows XP
Media Center to Vista Home Premium). The OS and Apps will be on the C:
drive and my files, data, music etc will be on the D: drive. I don't plan
to format the C: drive.

The reason I don't want to keep the dual boot is because I don't have a need
to switch back and forth between the 2 OS's and I don't like having to
reboot to use Vista and then reboot again to use Windows XP. Also, getting
rid of the dual boot means I don't have to keep making sure that my software
is upgraded on both OSs each time a patch comes out or having to install
Office on both OS's and then having to remember which OS I checked my email
(Outlook) on if I'm looking for one. etc ...

Where can I find the option to disable dual boot that you're talking about?
I don't want to just reduce the timer. Can I just run Fix MBR or Fix Boot
from a CMD prompt to get rid of it?

 

[John Barnes]

David,
Your best bet is to download and install VistaBootPro
http://www.vistabootpro.org/ . From there you can do a restore of the XP
boot process. That should put you back to booting XP. Check and make sure
that your XP drive is the 'system drive' first.

 

[Chad Harris]

David--

I just want to make sure you are aware that you do not have to reboot to
switch between XP and Vista on a dual or multiboot box. This pre-empts the
very well discussed problem on the general and setup groups that the
volsnap.sys driver dictates that if you did boot to XP from Vista on a dual
boot, you'd lose the Vista restore points unless you hide Vista from XP
(several methods) but Bit Locker only available right now in Enteprise and
Ultimate is an easy way. Why Business did not include Bit Locker is a
question I still have, but I think think the answer is money.

You are on XP and you want to work on a Vista desktop or with Vista files:

Let's say XP is on C:\ and Vista is on E:\.

To access Vista from XP>type in E:\Users\Your Profile\Desktop or E:\Users
for files and folders.

To access XP from Vista type in C:\Documents and Settings\Your
Profile\Desktop.

If you setup from XP no drive letters change; setup from restart and Bios
dictates that Vista becomes C:\ and your former XP C:\ (from Vista) moves
down the alphabet one. D:\ becomes E:\ and F:\ stays the same.

CH

 

[David Berry]

Thanks. That worked

David,
Your best bet is to download and install VistaBootPro
http://www.vistabootpro.org/ . From there you can do a restore of the XP
boot process. That should put you back to booting XP. Check and make
sure that your XP drive is the 'system drive' first.

 

[David Berry]

There is no Edit button in Vista and on the Windows XP boot Vista isn't
listed. I used the Vista Boot pro suggestion and that worked

OK,
Right click My Computer, select properties,
Click the Advanced tab and under Startup and Recovery, click the Settings
button,
Click the Edit button, and under [operating systems]
delete the line with Vista in it.
Ok your way back out and Reboot.

--
Jerry

If you want the best seat in the house,
You'll have to move the cat.

I don't want to format the drives. I want to keep Windows XP on the C
drive. All I want to do is get rid of the dual boot screen at start up
(and then I can format the D Drive that has Vista) so that it boots to
Windows XP like it normally would.

 

[John Barnes]

You're welcome.

Thanks. That worked

 

[Trip Lane]

I used the tip also John. Thanks from me too.

 

[Guest]

I have a similar problem. I installed Vista Business on F: as a dual boot
with XP on C: but XP will now no longer boot although Vista works fine. I
have found I can do everything using Vista and as my hard drive is full I
would like to re-combine the C: and F: partitions, reformat and recover my
Vista full backup onto the new C: drive (I will probably buy a new C: drive
so I have the option of putting the old drive back in case it all goes
wrong). The key question is will Vista recover a multiboot Vista backup onto
a single drive? I would rather not reinstall Vista from scratch as it has
taken a long time to get all the drivers and application software working
under Vista.

 

[John Barnes]

Are XP and Vista on separate drives, or just separate partitions?
Does Vista show up as C or F when you are booted into Vista. All your
shortcuts etc. are going to be recorded in the registry and if the drive
letter changes when you restore your backup, you will not be happy.
If you have them on separate drives it should be pretty easy. If on
separate partitions, you may want to try Disk Management to redo your
partitions instead of doing the backup idea.

 

[Guest]

You're right, C and F are just separate partitions so all my applications are
installed on F. I will have a think about whether there is a simple solution
to this, maybe I could make my root drive F and have no C drive, otherwise I
will have to reinstall everything.

 

[John Barnes]

Make your Vista partition your 'system' partition, by going into your BIOS
and changing the Vista drive as first hard drive in boot priority (after
your DVD player). Do this after going into Disk Management and making the
Vista partition the active partition on that drive. You should then be able
to boot to the Vista install DVD and run the startup repair and be able to
boot to Vista. You can easily change boot priority back to the current
setup if you have any problems.

 

[John Barnes]

Sorry I misread your post. Since you have C and F on the same drive, you
can try making the
Vista partition active and then running the startup repair, Later you can
try the Vista Disk Management to delete the XP partition and expand the
Vista partition. You may end up having to use a 3rd party partitioning
program like BootItNG to do the final partitioning you want.