Weirdness after reinstalling Windows

[Alex]

Just reformatted and reinstalled WXP Home, and I have tw
problems I can't fix:

(1) On starting up PC, I get a message (white text on all
black screen) saying "Please select the Operating System
to start". It then gives two identical choices - XP Home
Edition. There is also the option to select F8 for
troubleshooting and advanced startup options, but I can't
see any obvious way to stop this message coming up. How
do I bypass it?

(2) My newly reinstalled Windows seems to have a
strangely small font size. I've played about with Control
Panel/Appearances and Themes/Display/Appearance, where
there is an option to change the font size, but this only
changes the size of fonts in some and not all of Windows
functions. Typically, the small font appears in those
little grey boxes that pop up from time to time with menus
or information, e.g. on Explorer. Is there a way I can
change the font size?

Many thanks in advance.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

Question 1) The problem you describe is usually associated with having
installed more than one instance of XP. I have noted the instructions
you've posted for formatting in XP in this newsgroup and you seem to have
done the right thing. Assuming you did in fact delete, recreate and format
during XP install, first, are you sure you deleted the right partition, is
it possible you deleted the wrong partition, hence leaving you with your old
setup as well as now having a new setup?

As to the second issue, you may need to reinstall the drivers for your
graphics card or check the card manufacturer's website for the latest
drivers unless you have some sort of theme package you might have installed
in which case, I would suspect the theme package.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

Before you follow up on "The Unknown P's" suggestion with regard to the
boot.ini, you might want to check to be sure you have full capacity for your
hard drive. If not, deleting the entry reference to a separate OS will stop
the message on bootup but you may have a partition being used by that other
OS and deleting the boot.ini entry won't resolve that. Also make sure there
aren't two XP installations on the same partition which also might be the
source of this issue.

 

[Michael Solomon \(MS-MVP Windows Shell/User\)]

He may be able to solve the graphics problem that way but the indication was
this happened on right after setup. That shouldn't happen and indicates a
driver issue unless, as I mentioned he's installed a theme package.