Removing 98 from dual boot XP/98

[frankg]

Hello
I need help removing Win98 from a dual boot machine (98 and xp).
I had a very small HD on my old machine with 98 (drive C, then I purchased
and installed a larger drive and made 2 partitions on it - one for data
(drive G and on the other I installed xp (drive D. I used Partition
Magic. The drive letters E: and F: are taken by a cd player and a cd burner.
Both OS were made active and when I boot up I get the option of which OS to
run and if I dont choose 98 in a few seconds then xp loads. I no longer need
C: with Win98 and could use it for storage, but I cant figure how to stop
the dual booting and make Win98 inactive so I can reformat that drive. I
tried in Partition magic and couldn't boot at all - luckily I had a PM
recovery floppy disc to boot with. I also dont see the option in the Bios.
Thank you
Frank

 

[Ron Sommer]

The XP boot files are on C.
C:\ntldr
C:\boot.ini
C:\ntdetect.com

You need an active partition to be C and have the boot files.

XP would have to be reinstalled to not be D.

 

[frankg]

Is there a way to rename the drives (C: & D, so that what is currently D:
(on which XP is installed) becomes C: as you say it should be - and move
those three files across ? I dont need C:at all, it's only 4GB.

Even though I installed xp to a different physical drive - it would place
those 3 files on C: by default?

What steps would you take I'm on shaky ground here

The XP boot files are on C.
C:\ntldr
C:\boot.ini
C:\ntdetect.com

You need an active partition to be C and have the boot files.

XP would have to be reinstalled to not be D.

 

[Ron Sommer]

You could make a small active partition on the larger drive.
The partition doesn't have to be the first partition.
Put the boot files on this partition.
My C is the second partition.
Just make sure that the small active partition is the first active
partition.

XP knows that it is installed on D, so it can't be changed.
--
Ron Sommer

Is there a way to rename the drives (C: & D, so that what is currently
D: (on which XP is installed) becomes C: as you say it should be - and
move those three files across ? I dont need C:at all, it's only 4GB.

Even though I installed xp to a different physical drive - it would place
those 3 files on C: by default?

What steps would you take I'm on shaky ground here

 

[frankg]

To recap:
The larger physical hard drive currently has two partitions (D: on which XP
is installed and G: which is for data files).
You're suggesting that I make another 3rd small partion on this drive and
copy the 3 files you mentioned before into it. And set this new partition as
Active and the first of the 3 (Win98 on C:, XP on D - I assume I will be
able to do all this with Partition Magic.
Once that is done, the machine should boot ok and will it ignore C: and
Win98 leaving the drive available to be formatted.
Sorry for the baby steps here but I have to tread carefully

 

[Ron Sommer]

I don't know what will happen if you leave the small drive jumpered as
Master on the primary IDE connection.
I will post in the morning.

 

[Andy]

Read this tread; it's very similar to your problem.
<http://groups.google.com/group/micr...win2000.general&rnum=1&hl=en#f6064f5e00cad2a6>

 

[Ron Sommer]

Because you are not concerned with removing the 4 GB drive, just remove Win
98 and the dual boot.
It is possible to create a partition on the large drive for the boot
partition, but then it would be best to rejumper the drives so the large
drive was Master and fixboot would have to be run to write boot code to the
MBR.

Boot to XP.
Delete the Windows 98 folder. C:\Windows
You can delete everything on C except ntldr,boot.ini, ntdetect.com
These are hidden files.

Start, Run, msconfig
Boot.ini tab
Check All Boot Paths