Uninstalling first XP from old drive (duel boot)

[Nan]

I installed a new HD and put XP on it (still having XP on
my old drive with a duel boot). I just finished
installing all my programs. I now need to uninstall XP
off my old drive. I can only find info on uninstalling
another OS from a partition. Nothing on uninstalling a
second XP from an entirely seperate drive.

Tried to just unhook the old drive but then my machine
will not boot at all.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Nan

 

[Malke]

I installed a new HD and put XP on it (still having XP on
my old drive with a duel boot). I just finished
installing all my programs. I now need to uninstall XP
off my old drive. I can only find info on uninstalling
another OS from a partition. Nothing on uninstalling a
second XP from an entirely seperate drive.

Tried to just unhook the old drive but then my machine
will not boot at all.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Thanks!

Nan

Just format the old drive and keep it in the computer for data storage
or whatever. You can do this from within the XP installation you are
keeping. Go to Control Panel, Administrative Tools, Computer
Management.

Malke

 

[Guest]

Malke,
If I reformat the drive will that get rid of the dual
boot screen that comes up when I start?
Nan

 

[Malke]

Malke,
If I reformat the drive will that get rid of the dual
boot screen that comes up when I start?
Nan

No, you'll want to change that in the boot.ini after you've formatted
the drive. You can go to Start>Run and type "msconfig" without the
quotes. Then click on the Boot.ini tab and you'll see a button "Check
All Boot Paths". Click it and follow along to make the corrections.

Malke

 

[Nan]

-----Original Message-----


No, you'll want to change that in the boot.ini after you've formatted
the drive. You can go to Start>Run and type "msconfig" without the
quotes. Then click on the Boot.ini tab and you'll see a button "Check
All Boot Paths". Click it and follow along to make the corrections.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
.

 

[Ron Sommer]

No, you'll want to change that in the boot.ini after you've formatted
the drive. You can go to Start>Run and type "msconfig" without the
quotes. Then click on the Boot.ini tab and you'll see a button "Check
All Boot Paths". Click it and follow along to make the corrections.

Malke
--
MS MVP - Windows Shell/User
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"

Malke,
Did you tell anonymous to format the drive containing the boot files?
"Tried to just unhook the old drive but then my machine will not boot at
all."
Boot.ini has to be on the old drive and will be wipe out if the drive is
formatted.

 

[Malke]

Malke,
Did you tell anonymous to format the drive containing the boot files?
"Tried to just unhook the old drive but then my machine will not boot
at all."
Boot.ini has to be on the old drive and will be wipe out if the drive
is formatted.

Hi, Ron. I just reread the whole thread just to be sure. Nan's original
post was that she had bought a new drive and successfully installed XP
on it as Drive C:. Therefore, the new installation of XP's boot.ini
would be on that new drive (Drive C. She wanted to know if she could
keep the old drive as data storage. She apparently installed the new XP
with the old drive still in the machine and now had the dual boot
because the new XP installation recognized the second installation. So
by formatting the old hard drive from within the new installation and
fixing the boot.ini path, she should now have a second hard drive for
data (or whatever) with only one entry for XP in the boot.ini on Drive
C:. Thanks for the oversight, though. That's one of the great things
about Usenet tech support - peer review is A Good Thing.

Cheers,

Malke

 

[Alex Nichol]

I installed a new HD and put XP on it (still having XP on
my old drive with a duel boot). I just finished
installing all my programs. I now need to uninstall XP
off my old drive. I can only find info on uninstalling
another OS from a partition. Nothing on uninstalling a
second XP from an entirely seperate drive.

The actual initial boot will be on the old drive (and your new XP will
be in a D: or E: drive, not C. That is best left alone. If from that
new boot you delete the Windows folder containing the Old XP from C:,
you can then Start - Run - MSConfig.exe and on its Boot.ini page click
Check All Paths. This will find that the entry for the old version is
no longer valid, and offer to remove it.

Leave the basic hidden boot files in C: - ntldr; boot.ini and
ntdetect.com, but delete anything else from that drive

 

[Malke]

The actual initial boot will be on the old drive (and your new XP will
be in a D: or E: drive, not C. That is best left alone. If from
that new boot you delete the Windows folder containing the Old XP from
C:, you can then Start - Run - MSConfig.exe and on its Boot.ini page
click
Check All Paths. This will find that the entry for the old version is
no longer valid, and offer to remove it.

Leave the basic hidden boot files in C: - ntldr; boot.ini and
ntdetect.com, but delete anything else from that drive

Forgive me if this is a repost - my newsreader decided to crap out on me
right as I was sending my first response to this.

I thought about this thread as I was taking the kids to school, mulling
it over in traffic, etc., and it is apparent that I made an assumption
that wasn't supported by the text. For me, this highlights the
difficulties and shortcomings of doing tech support via Usenet. I made
the assumption that the OP would have *replaced* the old drive as
master with the new one because that is what *I* would have done as a
matter of course, in order to install XP on the new drive as C: and use
the older, smaller one for data. There is nothing in the thread that
supports that assumption. Of course, in a hands-on situation, the
actual setup would be immediately apparent and not subject to a tech's
preconceived ideas of *how* it should be done as opposed to how it
*really* is. I'll be far more careful about assumptions I make based on
what an OP details or doesn't detail, leaves unsaid, etc. in the
future.

Thanks for bringing this to light. It was a good learning moment for me.

Malke

 

[Alex Nichol]

I thought about this thread as I was taking the kids to school, mulling
it over in traffic, etc., and it is apparent that I made an assumption
that wasn't supported by the text. For me, this highlights the
difficulties and shortcomings of doing tech support via Usenet.

It is always a problem - especially remembering that we are trying to
answer a lot of questions in the time we have available; I know as a
result I sometimes mistake what is said. And also you have sometimes to
read between the lines to find the actual situation. But here, where
there was reference to removing 'from a separate drive' it was a case
where a new install had been run, setting up the dual boot.

I would myself retain the old drive around in such a situation - as a
place to store a backup image of the system if nothing else. But the I
would have started by cloning the old system to the new drive anyway.
But as the old saying goes 'If I wanted to go to there, I would'na
start from here'