XP dual boot

[kc7jnu]

I had a computer with XP Home on it and I tried to upgrade to XP Pro. The XP Pro disk was not an upgrade disk and so now I have a dual boot.

I would like to get rid of the HOME portion of the dual boot. Can this be done?

Also, how does one go about reformatting in NTSF?? I am a Newbie at XP.

 

[LONGHAIR]

This "Second copy" of WinXP is on the same partition? or did it take over another existing partition?

 

[kc7jnu]

The XP Pro is in - what was - the Recovery Partition D:\ - XP Home is on C:\

 

[LONGHAIR]

Recovery Partition? ..........Is this a name brand computer like Compaq, Dell, Etc?

 

[kc7jnu]

The computer is a Compaq and did not come with disks - instead it came with XP Home installed and a "Recovery Partition" and I had to make my own Recovery disks - The recovery partition is 4 megs - almost.

 

[LONGHAIR]

Is your original (home) version still bootable? If so you are probably going to have to back-up your data to CDs or something and start fresh. You can't even use the recovery partition, it has been overwritten.

 

[bsop]

Hi,
To reformat a NTFS partition, you must have the XP Installation CD.
You must then select the partition you want to install.
An option to modify the partition will be available and you can then go in and
delete the partition. Once the partition is deleted, you will have to creat the partition.
Once the partition has been created, you will then have an option to format the partition.

Or, you can use a Windows 98 disk. Boot into dos.
You can go into fdisk. You can delete the NTFS partition. It will show up as a non-dos partition. You can then re-create the partition. Once created, you can then re-boot, and format the partition normally as fat32. You can install NT on a Fat32 partition and later if you want to convert the partition to NTFS it can be done safely with a command prompt command.

To remove dual boot option from XP, you will have to boot your computer.

You will have to make all of your files visible.

Go to my computer.
Go to tools
Drag down to folder options and click
Once in folder options, click on the View tab
Once view is open, go to a folder called hidden files and folders.
By default a button will be selected "do not show hidden files and folders"
Select the other button" show hidden files and folders.

Then,
go to you boot drive.
You will then see a file called "boot.ini"
You will have to edit this file.

You will have some entries.
I do not have a dual boot configuration so I am configured for single boot.
I have copied and pasted my boot.ini files.

You will simply remove 2 lines, The two you don't want.
Save the file. You can always make a backup before you start.

-----------Boot.ini---------------
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
----------------boot.ini-----------

You can also go to:
Start > Settings > control pannel > System
Once system has been selected,
select the advanced tab.
In the 3rd box down, called startup and recovery.
Select the settings button.
You can then select the "edit" button in the Default operating system: box st the top.

 

[kc7jnu]

Yes, both partitions work. But I only want the Pro - don't suppose I could just erase windows off of C:\?

Changing the Boot.ini doesn't sound too hard - how much trouble could I get into?

I have made a XP boot floppy that boots to A:/

 

[kc7jnu]

Also, I did see a option to format C:\ so I thought I'll just get a few things off of C: then go boot again and format it. Next time I never got that options - thats how Pro arrived on the D:\ drive.

 

[LONGHAIR]

The recovery partition is small. Yes, you can just leave XP Pro there, but it will cause you greif. If you back-up the data you need (while you still can) you can start over by installing XP Pro to the C drive. Since you will no longer be able to use the Compaq recovery partition, you can leave it for data or increase the size of the C drive when you format the entire drive.

 

[kc7jnu]

Do I have to rely on the Windows CD to format in NTFS? And how do I partition it - I would like 40gig partitions. I did this stuff all the time for Win98 but I am out of my element with XP-ntfs.

Could I format C: from my D: drive where XP pro is? then install it on C:?