Accidental Duel Boot XP, How to Eliminate 1?

[Chris Freeland]

A while back I tried to do a fresh install on my daughters XP machine, some how I accidentally did a 2nd install on a new partition instead of 1 clean install, how do I eliminate one and keep the other or 1 new one without adding a 3rd? Or other words, how do I do a F-disk like function with XP on one or both partitions?

[Steve Mehs]

Do it just as if you were installing Windows. Pop a Windows install CD (any one will do). Let it do it's thing and check for previous versions of Windows, hit Enter to continue the set up, F8 to agree to the EULA and at some point you'll be asked which partition you'd like to install Windows on. Arrow down to highlight the partitions you want deleted, press D to delete then it will ask you to confirm by hitting L. After your done press F3 to quit, eject the CD and it will reboot. If you keep getting the Select OS screen you will have to edit the boot.ini file.

I’ve done this many of times on every Windows OS from 95 and NT4 to Windows 2003 Enterprise Server. Even had 8 versions of Windows on my old computer at one point. Nothing went wrong on me. I used to reformat my hard drive on a daily basis on switch out operating systems, now I just use Windows 2000 Pro, when I had my own domain I was on 2003 Small Business Server.

[Mikey]

You might not have two partitions, just two calls to the same partition. Check boot.ini by running msconfig.exe.

If the disk and partition numbers in the windows invocation lines are identical, you should be able to erase one of the invocation lines.

[n8dagr8]

You might not have two partitions, just two calls to the same partition. Check boot.ini by running msconfig.exe.

If the disk and partition numbers in the windows invocation lines are identical, you should be able to erase one of the invocation lines.

Mikey is probably right. I had this problem a while back and this took care of it.

hit start >> run >> type "msconfig">> hit enter >> click "boot.ini" tab >> click "check all boot paths"

[Chris Freeland]

Thanks guys, I already solved the problem mostly. I decided to try a clean install and eliminated both partitions, however when it boots up it still shows 2 xt os's but only the top one is the full blown os now, if you try to boot from the 2nd one you just get some kind of message.

[DonLandis]

Steve or any moderator- would you correct the spelling of the title? Duel is a traditional pistol shootout done in a gentlemanly fasion to settle a point of honor. It is a noun. I believe the word is "Dual" boot. Dual an adjective that means double.

Thanks.

[Mikey]

Steve or any moderator- would you correct the spelling of the title? Duel is a traditional pistol shootout done in a gentlemanly fasion to settle a point of honor. It is a noun. I believe the word is "Dual" boot. Dual an adjective that means double.

Thanks.Maybe the two OS's were conflicting, vying for superiority, therefore in a "duel". :D

[Steve Mehs]

Sorry Don, I'm no loger a Mod and don't have the powers to change the thread title.