Deleting One Of Two Xp Installations

[V3X]

hows it goin?

i currently have two installations of xp on my comp, but i want to delete one of them.the reason i have 2 is beacuase when i was gonna reformat my c: drive and re-install xp, but i sumhow managed to install it to another harddrive, f:.

now when i turn on my computer, i always have to choose to boot one of two xp's, its really annyoing cause i sumtime choose the wrong one and it has different settings

what i want to do is delete the installation on both f: and c:, but then re-install xp on just my c:.

can anyone please tell me how to do this??

BTW: i was also thinking of installing linux on my f: drive after fixing all of my xp problems, what are your thoughts in this? ive had a little experience with linux and i have a guide book and a live cd of linux, which can also be installed.

thanks in advance for your help

 

[sam fisher]

Just format the drives. THis will of course delete everything. Then boot from the XP cd. Install. The end.

 

[V3X]

yh i was thinking of doing that ecexpt i got most of my drives full and stuff i wanna keep, i'll probl just burn a few dvds of all my shit.

thanks sam

 

[Rico]

delete the installation you don't want
resize the one you do want so it fills the whole drive
fdisk /mbr

 

[V3X]

delete the installation you don't want
resize the one you do want so it fills the whole drive
fdisk /mbr

​

just delete it through explorer?
if so, i guess i just delete F:\Windows and F:\Program Files? (thats the installation i wanna get rid of)

if i do, i could just boot with xp and re-format c: yeah??

 

[Squidge]

Personally, I'd just open "boot.ini" in notepad or whatever (it'll be on the first drive thats bootable, so probably c, delete the windows installation you don't want from there, and windows will never ask to choose between them again

or, you could just add a default choice and timeout value, and it'll automatically choose whichever you want at each bootup. eg:

timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINXP

gives me 3 seconds to choose an os, or it automatically loads the default one. Perfect if you don't know which one to keep, and which to delete.

 

[Rico]

just delete it through explorer?
if so, i guess i just delete F:\Windows and F:\Program Files? (thats the installation i wanna get rid of)

if i do, i could just boot with xp and re-format c: yeah??

​

Do that + the boot.ini thing Squidge mentioned. It would be best if you pasted the contents of boot.ini here and we'll tell you exactly what to change.

Forget about the delete partition and resize thing, that's if you accidentally made a new drive letter just for that windows install.

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

delete the installation you don't want
resize the one you do want so it fills the whole drive
fdisk /mbr

​

you can't use fdisk to re-size drives, fdisk /mbr just rebuilds the master Boot Record, and seeing as the MBR is fine, this will do nothing. Also I'm guessing this is a basic not a dynamic volume so XPs disk manager will not be able to re-size it either. Oh and it's not advisable to convert system volumes to a dynamic volume.

If I was you I would remove the entry for the 2nd XP from the boot.ini, reboot to check that it boots to the correct XP, then reformat the 2nd copy of XP using windows disk management.

if you need to re-size the partition to one single partition instead of two, then use something like PQMagic. Assuming that the two partitions are on the same volume.

 

[aapje89]

delete the installation you don't want
resize the one you do want so it fills the whole drive
fdisk /mbr

​

you can't use fdisk to re-size drives, fdisk /mbr just rebuilds the master Boot Record, and seeing as the MBR is fine, this will do nothing. Also I'm guessing this is a basic not a dynamic volume so XPs disk manager will not be able to re-size it either. Oh and it's not advisable to convert system volumes to a dynamic volume.

If I was you I would remove the entry for the 2nd XP from the boot.ini, reboot to check that it boots to the correct XP, then reformat the 2nd copy of XP using windows disk management.

if you need to re-size the partition to one single partition instead of two, then use something like PQMagic. Assuming that the two partitions are on the same volume.

​

i think he means:
delete one partition, then use fdisk /mbr to rewrite the mbr because it will be broken if one of the partitions is not there anymore, but i think that this is indeed not necessary because the to installations are both xp.

 

[V3X]

yep, its allf ixed now!!

thanks for all your help

 

[Rico]

delete the installation you don't want
resize the one you do want so it fills the whole drive
fdisk /mbr

​

you can't use fdisk to re-size drives, fdisk /mbr just rebuilds the master Boot Record, and seeing as the MBR is fine, this will do nothing. Also I'm guessing this is a basic not a dynamic volume so XPs disk manager will not be able to re-size it either. Oh and it's not advisable to convert system volumes to a dynamic volume.

​

Yeah thanks for the patronising message and all but I at no point implied fdisk /mbr resized ntfs volumes.

 

[moz]

delete the installation you don't want
resize the one you do want so it fills the whole drive
fdisk /mbr

​

you can't use fdisk to re-size drives, fdisk /mbr just rebuilds the master Boot Record, and seeing as the MBR is fine, this will do nothing. Also I'm guessing this is a basic not a dynamic volume so XPs disk manager will not be able to re-size it either. Oh and it's not advisable to convert system volumes to a dynamic volume.

​

Yeah thanks for the patronising message and all but I at no point implied fdisk /mbr resized ntfs volumes.

​

true, but it doesnt look patronizing to me , just a wrong assumption whilst trying to be helpful

 

[WarmFluffyUK]

delete the installation you don't want
resize the one you do want so it fills the whole drive
fdisk /mbr

​

you can't use fdisk to re-size drives, fdisk /mbr just rebuilds the master Boot Record, and seeing as the MBR is fine, this will do nothing. Also I'm guessing this is a basic not a dynamic volume so XPs disk manager will not be able to re-size it either. Oh and it's not advisable to convert system volumes to a dynamic volume.

​

Yeah thanks for the patronising message and all but I at no point implied fdisk /mbr resized ntfs volumes.

​

I wasn't trying to be patronising at all, just helpful. Sorry if it came across wrong though.