Uninstalling Dual Boot Windows 98 and XP Pro

[lastrider04]

Hi, I just wanted to be sure before I do anything because as I remember Installing and configuring Dual boot was rather complicated and stressful.

I have 2 HDD, C: & D: and I successfully installed both Windows 98 and Windows XP pro and ran a dual boot.

However I wish to uninstall Windows 98. Now the files for dual boot, boot.ini ect, are on C: (partition for Windows 98) and I'm not sure if I re-format the C: drive if I would be able to load Windows XP. So I thought it would be a good idea to check.

I would like to format my C: drive and uninstall Windows 98. SO if there is another way of uninstalling Windows 98 I'm open to suggestions.

 

[lastrider04]

If I hadn't made things clear, sorry. I want to keep Windows XP and Uninstall Windows 98 ie getting rid of dual boot and Windows 98.

p.s. Due to two different HDD and partitions. If I do format my C: drive only, would it be obligatory to back up Drive D: too?

 

[edfair]

No, D: should remain untouched. But you might want to disconnect it for the duration.
Better to clean the C: and reinstall the XP.

Ed Fair
Give the wrong symptoms, get the wrong solutions.

 

[lastrider04]

Thanks, so would I have to restore XP with the CD? and just to make sure if I do format C: and no option comes up to load either OS. Would entering the Windows CD and restarting the pc execute the CD? Being that the BIOS settings looks to the CD Drive.

 

[wolluf]

lastrider04,

if you wipe the C: drive - XP won't boot. As Ed says, probably best reinstalling XP. But options:-

If you're happy with XP on D:, and you're going to leave the 98 disk in the machine, just delete everything from the 98 drive except the files ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini in its root (you can do this easily from XP). Then edit the boot.ini file to remove the entry that boots 98. Machine should now just boot XP on the second drive - and you've got all the space on the first drive available.

If you're removing the 98 drive from the machine - you could create a boot sector on the second drive to boot XP (but you may have some problems with drive letters - XP may 'migrate' to C:, which would cause a lot of problems in the registry. So I'd take Ed's advice if this is what you're going to do - reinstall XP). If you want to create a boot sector - look at thread751-970549 where i've posted a reply about 2k (XP basically same process).

I hope this is helpful - please post back if you need more clarification (eg, regarding XP install - if your machine is set to boot from CD first & you put XP install CD in the drive, it will start the install process - but you need to be clear about your aims before you do this - make appropriate backups etc)

 

[lastrider04]

AHH thanks, and I went ahead with it. However after I formated C: I rebooted my PC and it said ntldr not detected. Im not sure why even though XP was suppose to boot from the new partition which i moved ntldr and boot.ini into before I formatted. So I restarted and booted onto XP CD and went to restore console. I used fixboot and bootcfg but that didn't work either.

So I remembered from previous experiances that if I choose to install Windows XP it would detect it and recover. However once it started i was unable to cancel it, and it went and installed another Windows XP. After that I went back onto the recovery console and tried bootcfg and that worked and put Windows XP (original) back onto the boot list. Now I can boot onto both XP's. LOL

Now I want to get rid of the new installation, without formatting D:. Im just digging myself into a bigger hole. I cant delete the new instillation folders either. To top it off I cant find the new boot files.

P.S. Wolluf,
I didn't want to delete 98 files from XP as I heard that could leave some problems behind. And formatting will cleanly remove 98.

 

[lastrider04]

I have located boot.ini. Now I can't seem to save the file as it is read only. How can I save over this to get rid of the other entries?

Also would I be able to just Delete the files and folders to get rid of the other instillation of Windows XP?

 

[lastrider04]

Sorry I had forgotten that "Hide Protected Operating system files" had to be unchecked. Now I've gotten rid of the boot entries would i be able to delete Windows XP?

 

[lastrider04]

Well I went ahead with it and deleted the new XP instillation through the other XP and removed the files and everything seems to be OK again.

I recommend to others that if you are going to do something similar to what I wanted to do, please dont do it the way I did it. Like wolluf said plan your steps before hand and ask for help if you're not sure

But it all worked out so, thank you guys.