Uninstall win2000

[Dean Michael]

I want to uninstall win2000 for a friend. His system has
only win2000 on it. Win2000 won't let me uninstall it
because it is the only O/system. Any suggestions?

 

[Dave Patrick]

There is no uninstall. To wipe the drive, some ways include; boot a win98
startup disk, run fdisk and delete all partition information found (as long
as NTFS is primary). Or boot the Windows 2000 CD-Rom or setup disks and when
you get to the point, delete the existing NTFS and or other partitions
found, then abort the install. Or use a utility named delpart. Once removed
you can partition and format the drive as you wish.

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt-public/reskit/nt31/i386/reskit.exe

 

[jason reed]

Follow-up question...Windows 2000 installed itself with a
dual boot option. I still have ME and would like to go
back to it. Will your strategy work and allow me to keep
my Windows ME intact? I'm concerned that I'll delete the
partition where ME resides.

-----Original Message-----
There is no uninstall. To wipe the drive, some ways include; boot a win98
startup disk, run fdisk and delete all partition information found (as long
as NTFS is primary). Or boot the Windows 2000 CD-Rom or setup disks and when
you get to the point, delete the existing NTFS and or other partitions
found, then abort the install. Or use a utility named delpart. Once removed
you can partition and format the drive as you wish.

ftp://ftp.microsoft.com/bussys/winnt/winnt- public/reskit/nt31/i386/reskit.exe

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows NT/2000 Operating Systems]

I want to uninstall win2000 for a friend. His system has
only win2000 on it. Win2000 won't let me uninstall it
because it is the only O/system. Any suggestions?

.

 

[Dave Patrick]

You can boot with your WinME startup disk and issue the command
sys C:
this will rewrite the boot sector, then you can delete these files boot.ini,
ntldr, ntdetect.com, bootsect.dos, pagefile.sys and possibly ntbootdd.sys
from the root of the System partition C:\., then you can delete the Windows
2000 boot partition or \winnt directory which ever the case.

 

[Dave Patrick]

Are the OS's installed to the same or separate partitions?

 

[Dave Patrick]

If they're on the same partition, it's not going to be a clean break in that
the two OS's are probably sharing the same "Program Files" dir among other
things. That aside you can boot with your Win98/ME startup disk and issue
the command
sys C:
this will rewrite the boot sector, then you can delete these files boot.ini,
ntldr, ntdetect.com, bootsect.dos, pagefile.sys and possibly ntbootdd.sys
from the root of the System partition C:\., then remove the \winnt directory
(rename it as a test first).

Best to wipe the drive and start over.

 

[Dave Patrick]

Explorer|Tools|Folder Options|View, then radio button for "Show hidden files
and folders", then uncheck the box for "Hide protected operating system
files" to locate the files in the system partition.

 

[kcrow]

Same ("i think", she mumbles)...

Are the OS's installed to the same or separate partitions?

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft MVP [Windows NT/2000 Operating Systems]

OK, Dave, I'm in the same fix as Jason (only I'm dumber). *How* does

one

go
about deleting boot.ini, ntldr, etc.? And I would really like to get that
gargantuan Win2K (about 2 gig) off my harddrive.

TIA,
KC