Uninstall XP from second local drive? 1

[KerryL]

My home PC has a small second hard drive (D that I mostly use to store documents. A while back I had some problems with the C: drive, and in order to get to the data on it I installed XP on the D: drive.

Okay, maybe that was a mistake but that's water under the bridge; now I can't seem to get rid of that version. I looked everywhere in the help doco and found nothing about uninstalling XP.

The problem now is that the PC is booting up off the D: and launching that version of XP. (Which means I cannot get to any of the data under the user accounts on C.

How can I remove Windows XP from the D: drive so that it's completely gone and the PC doesn't think it's still there? And why would the PC be booting off of D: instead of the primary (C drive?

Any help you can provide will be greatly appreciated.

KerryL

 

[YBNormal]

You can uninstall Win Xp if you have upgraded it from another Os (i.e win 98/win me, etc). The standard method of removing XP is achieved by booting into XP normally and uses the Add/Remove Programs tool in Control Panel. If you are unable to start XP normally, the second option is to load XP in Safe Mode then use the same tool. If you are unable to boot normally or boot into Safe Mode, XP can be removed by uninstalling from a Command Prompt. The procedure is as follows:

Important Note: This procedure is available only if a successful image of the previous operating system was created during the XP upgrade.

Start the computer to Safe Mode with Command Prompt.

At the command prompt, type cd\, and then press ENTER.

Type cd\windows\system32, and then press ENTER.

Type osuninst.exe, and then press ENTER.

On screen instructions will guide you through the uninstall process to revert to the previous operating system.

This procedure can only be performed by users logged on as Administrator or a user with administrative rights.


However if you have not upgraded to Xp then what I would suggest is that copy everything important on this drive to another drive and delete the partition on the drive and recreate a new partition and format it.

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.
- Jeff Raskin

 

[KerryL]

Thanks for the advice, Jeff.

FYI, I didn't upgrade from a previous version of Windows--I installed XP new on the PC. In fact, the XP OS on C: still works fine, I just can't get the PC to boot up and launch that version because it defaults to the D: drive.

Also, I did try to uninstall XP via the Add/Remove Programs utility, but XP was never listed. Even when I went into the Windows Components selection, I only had the option of installing/uninstalling individual accessories or components from XP--not XP itself--because XP wasn't listed as one of the programs I could remove.

I also tried deleting everything on that drive, creating a new partition and formatting it. But even after that I was asked (during bootup) which version of XP (C: or D I wanted to launch. So apparently the XP install on D: created some sort of link that was still being referenced during boot-up. (Ggggrrrrrr)

Tonight I will try the dos uninstall process you shared and let you know tomorrow if I was successful of ridding the D: drive of the pesky XP software. But since there was no previous version of Windows on that drive, I suspect it won't work.

Ultimately what I want to do is launch XP from C: so I can save all my data and rebuild the C: drive. But until XP on C: is used as the OS I won't be able to do that.

Thanks again,
KerryL

 

[YBNormal]

what you might try and do is modify the boot.ini file on the c:
You can use the command-line tool, Bootcfg.exe, to quickly edit your Boot.ini file. You can modify the timeout (the amount of time Windows waits before choosing the default operating system), and remove additional entries.
To start Bootcfg.exe
Click Start, click Run, and then type cmd.
Type bootcfg.exe
Check out bootcfg.exe /? for more options.

Also try going into the BIOS and making sure in the boot sequence just the C: is there and not the D:

letme know how it goes, otherwise i'll give you another method to erase everything from D:

Imagine if every Thursday your shoes exploded if you tied them the usual way. This happens to us all the time with computers, and nobody thinks of complaining.
- Jeff Raskin

 

[KerryL]

Thank you. I'll try these options tonight and let you know tomorrow if I have any luck.