Windows 7 - Q: Remove xp from dual vista / xp setup

Asked By Skera

18-Nov-09 03:04 PM

Scenario:
Got 3 harddrives,

Disk 0 : d: Xp (system, active, primary) g: (primary)
Disk 1 : e: (primary) f: (page file, logical)
Disk 2 : c: vista (boot, page file, active, crash dump, primary)

Right, dont ask me why i set so many primarys lol.. Hope it wont affect
me!

Basicly i want to get rid of xp completly, prefrebly without having to
reinstall !!
Hope there is a supah geek out there that can help me!

Basicly i got a chuck of boot stuff on the d: drive like, autoexec,
boot.ini, bootmgr, bootsect, config.sys, io, msdos,ntdetect, ntldr, and
of course the pagefile :)

How do i go about removeing my xp installation, and still keeping my
boot?


--
Skera

18-Nov-09 06:35 PM

Since your Vista disk is the boot disk you can just delete and/or
reformat the partitions on the XP disk.

Once you have done that, use EasyBCD http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1 to
remove the XP option from the boot menu.

18-Nov-09 10:07 PM

Incorrect.

Disk 0, or D:, is marked as the [system] disk, so it is the active one and
contains the boot information. If you format it, you will lose this data and
render the system unbootable until a startup repair is affected.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP
http://mvp.support.microsoft.com/
Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

19-Nov-09 12:33 AM

HI, Skera.

Rick is correct, of course.  But I am more wordy than he is.  ;^}

Your choice depends on what you want to end up with.

The simplest way to get rid of WinXP is just to delete the D:\Windows folder
tree - completely.  That is ALL that is really necessary; the rest of this
is optional.

To remove distractions and reclaim a small amount of space that will not be
needed anymore, delete nearly all the files you mentioned:


These have not been needed since Win98.


These are used only by WinXP (and Win2K).


Vista - and Win7 - DO need bootmgr.


There are two versions of bootsect:  Bootsect.dos is a copy of the
WinXP-style boot sector, so it is just 512 bytes; it is used only to start
WinXP when dual-booting, so it can be deleted.  You'll need bootsect.exe if
you ever want to change to the WinXP-style boot sector OR if your Vista/Win7
boot sector needs to be rewritten - so keep it in your hidden D:\Boot
folder.


The page file is a separate topic.  This file gets re-written each time you
reboot anyhow, so you can use Advanced System Settings, while running Vista,
to put it wherever you want.  Then delete any other one that might remain
because it will never be used, anyhow.

Another solution would be to disconnect (physically or in the BIOS) both
Disk 0 and Disk 1, then insert the Vista DVD and run Setup to let it create
a new System Volume in the primary partition on what is now Disk 2.  Your
Drive C: would then be both the System Volume and Vista's Boot Volume.  That
would let you reformat your Drive D: when you reconnect it and use it for
data or any other need you might have.


Windows does not care how many primary partitions you have.  I also have 3,
one on each HDD, and made sure that each is Active (bootable).  Each is
quite small because the only contents are Startup files.  The rest of each
HDD is an Extended Partition, divided into several Logical Drives; some of
these serve as Boot Volumes for various Windows installations.  I ran Vista
Setup 3 times, once with each HDD set as the Boot Device (NOT the same as
the Boot Volume) in the BIOS, so the first partition on each HDD can serve
as the System Partition.  If Disk 0 becomes unbootable, I can reset the BIOS
to boot from Disk 1 - or Disk 2 - and be back in business in a hurry.  The
boot-up process always starts in the System Partition - which is the Active
primary partition on the currently-designated HDD - and branches from there
to the Boot Volume of whichever Windows version is selected from the OS
menu.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
rc@grandecom.net
Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

20-Nov-09 06:31 PM

Skera, welcome to the forums
As Vista is already your boot partition, you can probably use 'EasyBCD
' (http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1) to remove XP from the bootloader
then remove / reformat the partition


--
Wallyinnc

This is sewius