removing dual boot setup

[bottomfeeder]

I have WinME (C: drive) and WinXP (D: drive) on the box here and have been using
dual boot for two years.

WinME has crapped out and refuses to boot at all - KERNAL ERROR and it needs to
go anyway. No body uses it at all anymore. I want to remove the WinME drive, but
the boot menu resides there. Can I just set the WinXP drive to master (making it
C and remove the WinME drive altogether. Will there be any boot problems to be
prepared for?

I also want to experiment with the 80 gig drive I have just acquired that has
Linspire installed. Can it be setup to co-exist with my WinXP system and perhaps
to dual boot like before?

Thanks,
BF

 

[Guest]

Go>start\run and type in msconfig and click OK. Now look at the boot.ini tab
and click the check all boot paths button. See if it finds a bad boot record
and removes it. You can also go into control panel\system\advanced
tab\startup and recovery section settings button and then the edit button and
check for any unwanted boot paths here and remove them. TTFN.

 

[Guest]

Try reading this article from microsoft about removing dual boot
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/q289022/

 

[Kelly]

Hi,

Yes and Yes.

Part 1:

Options:

Go to Start/Run and type in: msconfig
Then go to the Boot.ini Tab and click on Check All Boot Paths. If you
receive a warning about a duplicate path: Do you want to remove, choose
yes.

Or...

Right click the My Computer icon/Properties/Advanced/Startup and
Recovery/Settings/System Startup/Edit.

How to Edit the BOOT.INI File in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q289/0/22.asp

Added info by M. Stevens:

I have two installations of XP on the same partition, how do I remove the
one I don't need?

Boot to the desired version of Windows XP you want to keep. Making note of
the position in the boot menu. This will be important when you edit
boot.ini.

Open a command prompt * and type " echo %windir%" without the quotes. This
will give you the current Windows folder you are using.

From Explorer, delete the folder containing the installation you want to
remove. The original install folder is usually called Windows and subsequent
folders will be derivatives of Windows or Winnt.

From System Properties [Winkey+Pause/Break] > Advanced Tab > Statup and
Recovery > Settings > Edit.

Select the Edit button and from notepad, first backup boot.ini, by going to
File; Save As and rename boot.ini. to something like boot.inibak.

Remove the line referencing the installation not chosen; you made note of in
step one.
Set timeout=0 so the system boots directly into Win XP (you will not get the
boot menu).
Save As boot.ini & Exit.

Reboot.

Part 2:

How to Install Windows 98 after Installing Windows XP
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm

How to Install W2K to its Own Partition after installing XP
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_2k.htm

Even better: Virtual PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx
--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com

 

[NoStop]

After sticking her head out from her XP firewall, Kelly had this to say:

Hi,

Yes and Yes.

Part 1:

Options:

Go to Start/Run and type in: msconfig
Then go to the Boot.ini Tab and click on Check All Boot Paths. If you
receive a warning about a duplicate path: Do you want to remove, choose
yes.

Or...

Right click the My Computer icon/Properties/Advanced/Startup and
Recovery/Settings/System Startup/Edit.

How to Edit the BOOT.INI File in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q289/0/22.asp

Added info by M. Stevens:

I have two installations of XP on the same partition, how do I remove the
one I don't need?

Boot to the desired version of Windows XP you want to keep. Making note of
the position in the boot menu. This will be important when you edit
boot.ini.

Open a command prompt * and type " echo %windir%" without the quotes. This
will give you the current Windows folder you are using.

From Explorer, delete the folder containing the installation you want to
remove. The original install folder is usually called Windows and
subsequent folders will be derivatives of Windows or Winnt.

From System Properties [Winkey+Pause/Break] > Advanced Tab > Statup and
Recovery > Settings > Edit.

Select the Edit button and from notepad, first backup boot.ini, by going
to File; Save As and rename boot.ini. to something like boot.inibak.

Remove the line referencing the installation not chosen; you made note of
in step one.
Set timeout=0 so the system boots directly into Win XP (you will not get
the boot menu).
Save As boot.ini & Exit.

Reboot.

Part 2:

How to Install Windows 98 after Installing Windows XP
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm

How to Install W2K to its Own Partition after installing XP
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_2k.htm

Even better: Virtual PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx

Why don't you answer him inline so that your answer makes sense? Learn how
to post on Usenet. Your advice would probably help someone IF it was
understandable. So what does "Yes and Yes" apply to?

 

[Ron Sommer]

Kelly,
bottomfeeder has two hard drives with an operating system on each drive.

bottomfeeder,
XP is installed to D:.
The Registry has references to XP being on D:.
ntldr, boot.ini, and ntdetect.com need to be on C:.
--
Ron Sommer

Hi,

Yes and Yes.

Part 1:

Options:

Go to Start/Run and type in: msconfig
Then go to the Boot.ini Tab and click on Check All Boot Paths. If you
receive a warning about a duplicate path: Do you want to remove, choose
yes.

Or...

Right click the My Computer icon/Properties/Advanced/Startup and
Recovery/Settings/System Startup/Edit.

How to Edit the BOOT.INI File in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q289/0/22.asp

Added info by M. Stevens:

I have two installations of XP on the same partition, how do I remove the
one I don't need?

Boot to the desired version of Windows XP you want to keep. Making note of
the position in the boot menu. This will be important when you edit
boot.ini.

Open a command prompt * and type " echo %windir%" without the quotes. This
will give you the current Windows folder you are using.

From Explorer, delete the folder containing the installation you want to
remove. The original install folder is usually called Windows and
subsequent folders will be derivatives of Windows or Winnt.

From System Properties [Winkey+Pause/Break] > Advanced Tab > Statup and
Recovery > Settings > Edit.

Select the Edit button and from notepad, first backup boot.ini, by going
to File; Save As and rename boot.ini. to something like boot.inibak.

Remove the line referencing the installation not chosen; you made note of
in step one.
Set timeout=0 so the system boots directly into Win XP (you will not get
the boot menu).
Save As boot.ini & Exit.

Reboot.

Part 2:

How to Install Windows 98 after Installing Windows XP
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_9x.htm

How to Install W2K to its Own Partition after installing XP
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_repair_2k.htm

Even better: Virtual PC:
http://www.microsoft.com/windows/virtualpc/default.mspx
--

All the Best,
Kelly (MS-MVP)

Troubleshooting Windows XP
http://www.kellys-korner-xp.com

I have WinME (C: drive) and WinXP (D: drive) on the box here and have been
using dual boot for two years.

WinME has crapped out and refuses to boot at all - KERNAL ERROR and it
needs to go anyway. No body uses it at all anymore. I want to remove the
WinME drive, but the boot menu resides there. Can I just set the WinXP
drive to master (making it C and remove the WinME drive altogether.
Will there be any boot problems to be prepared for?

I also want to experiment with the 80 gig drive I have just acquired that
has Linspire installed. Can it be setup to co-exist with my WinXP system
and perhaps to dual boot like before?

Thanks,
BF

 

[S.Sengupta]

You need to leave NTDETECT.COM, NTLDR and BOOT.INI in the root directory
of the C: drive.So removing WINME which is your C: drive will create a
problem as far as XP's booting is concerned (it's in D: drive).If you
don't want to keep WINME then why don't you go for a clean install?
you can surely have a XP+Linspire dual boot.In that
case you have to create a dual partition.In the first partition you have
to install XP.Later in the remaining partition you have to install Linspire.
http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/archive/45/2004/11/2/222926

regards,
ssg MS-MVP

 

[bottomfeeder]

Why don't you answer him inline so that your answer makes sense? Learn how

to post on Usenet. Your advice would probably help someone IF it was
understandable. So what does "Yes and Yes" apply to?

I understood it okay. Yes I can just remove the old C: drive and just set the D:
drive as master and reboot.

I'll post results when the project is completed.

Thanks,
BF

 

[NoStop]

After sticking his head out from his XP firewall, bottomfeeder had this to
say:

I understood it okay. Yes I can just remove the old C: drive and just set
the D: drive as master and reboot.

I'll post results when the project is completed.

Thanks,
BF

How do you know that one of her "Yes" answers wasn't a reply to this
question you also posed (quoted):

"I also want to experiment with the 80 gig drive I have just acquired that
has Linspire installed. Can it be setup to co-exist with my WinXP system
and perhaps to dual boot like before?"

With her method of posting to Usenet, we'll never know what "Yes" and "Yes"
means when you ask 3 questions, now will we? But it seems you're quite
prepared to accept half-baked confusing answers, so I'll leave it at that.
You can come back and use up bandwidth again in the future if one of her
"Yes" answers didn't correctly answer one of the questions you posed. That
seems to be the way things work around here.

 

[bottomfeeder]

With her method of posting to Usenet, we'll never know what "Yes" and "Yes"

means when you ask 3 questions, now will we? But it seems you're quite
prepared to accept half-baked confusing answers, so I'll leave it at that.
You can come back and use up bandwidth again in the future if one of her
"Yes" answers didn't correctly answer one of the questions you posed. That
seems to be the way things work around here.

Boo - f*cking - Hoo.

I asked, read all the replies, studied them, understood what to do, tried it and
it worked.

What more do YOU want?

Wasting bandwidth. I get so tired of of people whining about that. We aren't
running 300 baud any more. More gets thru the same pipe now. I'm using the same
phone line as my old Tandy acoustic modem did. Quit crying as if somebody using
my old modem on a TRS80 in Brazil is getting short changed his 'bandwidth'. If
ya don't want to read it, skip it.

Sheesh......

BF