Removing Windows Vista RC1 from partition

[Guest]

I have a laptop with a 60GB HDD, which is split into two 30GB partitions. The
primary partition (C contains a Windows XP installation, and the other
partiton (D contains an installation of Windows Vista RC1.

When booting, I get the Vista boot manager which lets me select between
Windows Vista and "Earier versions of Windows".

I would like to know exactly what steps I should take to remove the Vista
installation from the partition, and restore the boot manager to how it was
before I installed Vista. I know that Vista uses a different boot manager to
previous versions, but I don't know how to go about changing it back to how
it was before. I assume that simply formatting the partion would not restore
the pre-Vista boot manager.

I am an experienced PC user, I just want to make sure I do this right

Regards,
Tom

 

[David Wright]

1. Boot your computer in to Windows XP.
2. Ensure you have the Vista DVD image emulated or in the DVD drive.
3. Go to “Start†and “Runâ€. Type in “e:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL
/force†(without quotes, and replacing e: with the drive letter of your
Vista DVD).
4. Restart the computer, and you will notice the boot selection menu is
gone.
5. Format the partition/drive where you had Vista installed.
6. Remove two files (Boot.BAK & Bootsect.BAK) on your XP drive’s root
folder (C, these were backup files of your previous bootloader, now no
longer useful.
7. Optional: Restart to ensure it still works.
8. Use your partition software to merge your partitions together.

 

[Sinner]

David,

I read your reply about how to delete Vista and it has very helpful
information in it, but I was wondering how to get rid of a Vista
partition and Dual boot when you no longer have the DVD that you used to
install Vista with and therefore can't even make an ISO of it? I am
DESPARATE to get rid of this partition so that I can completely reformat
my XP machine!! I have run out of free space and Vista is doing nothing
but sitting there... I can't even log into it anymore.... Please,
please, PLEASE help me out!!!! Like I said, I'm desparate!!! Thanks in
advance!!!

Booting from the XP CD will give you an option to delete and rebuild
partitions and eventually reformat the drive.