delete xp in dual boot

  • Thread starter Thread starter waher
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waher

hi,
i have vista and xp set up on a dual boot. i would like to delete the xp
partition and run only vista home premium. have only found one suggestion
on net.
problem is no one claims to have sucessifully done it. i do not want to
reinstall vista as everything is finally learning how to remain stable. the
only real problem left is with vidio drivers. they work well but for an
ocasional crash. any sucessful solutions would be appreciated.
thanks, jude





i heard his refrain when the signal changed he was playing real good, for
free. Joni M.

http://www.geocities.com/waher/
 
Hi, Jude.

Deleting WinXP is much easier than setting up a dual-boot system. ;^}

Unless there's something special about your computer that you haven't told
us, just boot into Vista and remove WinXP's \Windows folder.

To save a few more bytes (probably less than .5 MB) of disk space, delete
WinXP's startup files from the System Partition. This partition was
probably Drive C: originally, but may have been changed to D: (or something
else) by the Vista installation. But the files will be in the Root of that
partition, so look for C:\NTLDR, C:\NTDETECT.COM and C:\Boot.ini - and
probably C:\Bootsect.bak, which is the backup of your WinXP boot sector.
These should be Hidden and System files.

Post back if you have questions or problems.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)
 
so to clarify, you're not saying i can re format the partition on which i
have xp, just that i can delete the window operating system. (i have a 150
gig drive now holding 3 partitions. c is vista, d is xp and i managed to
free 30gigs free space from xp on g. now what will prevent my vista boot
file which is set up for first vista then xp from failing to boot when xp is
gone, which everywhere on the net and microsoft says will happen if you just
remove xp. i really don't want to reinstall, as it took a few months for
vista to learn my needs and i don't want to lose my games saves. and it
doesn't look simple to rewrite vista bootloader.

thanks again, jude

--




i heard his refrain when the signal changed he was playing real good, for
free. Joni M.

http://www.geocities.com/waher/
 
Actually it is easier to set up a XP/Vista dual boot than to remove XP
afterwards. Assuming (I know - lousy word!) XP on C and Vista on D - Vista
installs files - in particuler a hidden folder titled "Boot", which
contains DCDStore data, on C, which if deleted as in deleting the XP Windows
folder will prevent Vista from booting. Also in a dual boot setup, or
"remainder" of such, Vista looks for boot.ini.

Options: 1. Delete all folders/files in C except for folder Boot, and as a
safety measure Boot.ini, Boot.bak and Bootsect.bak. Shrink C and add
unallocated space to D.
2. Use BCDEdit (As a command line tool) or a third party program such as
VistaPro to modify Vista to boot directly from D.
3. Reformat and reinstall Vista

Above all - BACKUP!!!!!
 
Hi, Jude.

WHOA!

My first post said:
At that point, you had said that Vista was in Drive C: and WinXP in Drive
D:. I foolishly assumed that your "Drive C:" was the first partition and,
therefore, the System Partition, in addition to being the Boot Volume for
Vista, and that "Drive D:" was a second partition, or on a second physical
drive, and held nothing but WinXP's operating system files.

But your second post gave us some critical additional information:
(i have a 150 gig drive now holding 3 partitions. c is vista, d is xp
Click to expand...

You haven't yet told us how you got to your current configuration, but my
guess is that you had WinXP on C: and then booted from the Vista DVD and
installed Vista - which claimed C: as the letter for its own boot volume
(your second partition) and assigned the letter D: to what WinXP had always
called C: - the first partition on the HD. Is that correct?

Please don't get hung up on "drive letters"! Vista and WinXP probably don't
agree on which partition is Drive C:. Assign each partition a name, or
"label", so that you will see the same names on the same volumes in both
operating systems. We've become conditioned to having the boot process
start in Drive C:, but that is not always the case.

Boot into Vista and run Disk Management. In the Status column, one - and
only one - volume should be labeled "System". One, and only one, should be
labeled "Boot". Then reboot into WinXP and run Disk Management again - and
note which volumes have which labels.

My guess is that in Vista, Drive D: is the System Partition and Drive C: is
the Boot Volume. In WinXP, Drive C: will have BOTH status labels. But the
FIRST PARTITION will have the System label in BOTH operating systems. If
that's not correct, then my guesses are wrong; please stop here and post
your actual system configuration, especially how many HDs, how are they
partitioned, which is the System Partition, and which is the Boot Volume for
each operating system.


Neither Vista nor WinXP will let you reformat the computer's System
Partition. Neither will let you reformat its own Boot Volume. But each
will consider the other OS's boot volume as "just another volume" and will
be happy to format that for you.

That's why I said to boot into Vista and delete WinXP's "boot folder". You
said WinXP is on D:, so that would be D:\Windows.

The biggie question: What configuration do you want to end up with? You
first said you just want to get rid of WinXP, so I told you the easiest way
to do just that: Delete D:\Windows, where D: is the WinXP's "boot volume".
And then, optionally, remove the few unneeded files that are required to be
in the System Partition, no matter where WinXP's boot volume resides.
you're not saying i can re format the partition on which i have xp,
Click to expand...

HOW would you reformat that partition? If, as I suspect, it is the System
Partition, then neither WinXP nor Vista will obey your command to reformat
it. You would need to boot from some other source to reformat it. If you
were to succeed, the reformat would wipe out the startup files for both
WinXP and Vista! Then you would need to restore Vista's boot sector, \Boot
folder and BCD (Boot Configuration Data), probably by booting from the Vista
DVD again and running the repair utility.

If the System Partition is not WinXP's Boot Volume, then yes, you can
reformat it, but that should not be necessary. If you have files on that
volume but outside the \Windows folder, and you also want to remove them,
then reformat might be the best way. In fact, if there's nothing on that
volume that you want to keep, then reformatting it is a very good idea. But
removal of D:\Windows will get rid of WinXP.

Sorry for the long post, Jude, but a short post would have left out some
important points.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)
 
to further clarify. i installed vista first on new disc and then copied xp
from another disc which i disconnected from the computer., thus giving me a
dual boot. in fustration i then shrank the xp volumn and created a third
partition to free up usable space.

now when i boot into vista drive C is: boot, page file, crash dump & primary
partition. xp is drive D and is; system, active & primary partition.

i do understand your instructions on how to delete and reformat drive D and
xp. but the little i found on the net does agree that after getting rid of
xp that vista's boot file is now unable to work. only one post also says to
boot the vista CD, but they imply that just running repair won't work. they
then say to use dos prompt in vista repair console using command
"bootrec.exe /fixmbr" to remove xp from vista bootloader. and then use
"bootrec.exe /fixboot" to check if xp is off the bootloader. then restare
and vista will boot.

the problem is that no admits to doing this and having it work. the reply
said he would just live with the dual boot as everyone implys that this may
or may not work, so one should be safe and just reinstall.

also backing up vista will also back up dual boot boot loader. and no one
suggests that using VistaBootPro will make a difference.
as the miscroft web site says that you can't get rid of xp in a dual boot,
i'm concerned about doing so without seeing that someone has done this
sucessfully.
again i appreciate your forbearance.

- jude



--




i heard his refrain when the signal changed he was playing real good, for
free. Joni M.

http://www.geocities.com/waher/
 
Hi, Jude.

I'm sorry, but we are just not communicating. :>(
to further clarify. i installed vista first on new disc
Click to expand...

This doesn't clarify much. Was this "new disc" a virgin? Was it the only
HDD in the computer at the time? How was it partitioned and formatted,
before and during the Vista installation? I mean, did you use WinXP or some
other tool to partition and format it before you booted from the Vista DVD?
Or did you let Vista Setup create and format the partition into which it
then installed Vista?
and then copied xp from another disc which i disconnected from the
computer., thus giving me a dual boot.
Click to expand...

That does not compute! Simply copying WinXP does NOT create a dual-boot.
Just copying it does not make WinXP bootable at all. WinXP's boot sector is
NOT a file and normal file utilities can't copy it - and WinXP can't boot
without it.

And what does "another disc which i disconnected" mean? Was this a HDD that
was already in your computer, and which you unplugged the cables from or
disabled it in the BIOS before you installed Vista onto your "new disc"?
And then you re-connected it as before, after installing Vista onto the new
HDD? Which one was Disk 0 after you re-connected it? And which was set as
the boot device in the BIOS?

And HOW did you create the dual-boot menu in Vista's BCD after copying WinXP
onto...where? The second partition on your new HDD?


I'm afraid I'm going to have to bow out now and let someone else help you
with this problem. I simply can't argue with all the unnamed sources who
keep telling you all sorts of other things about how dual boots work. I've
been dual-booting for about 10 years now, since WinNT4/95, up through the
Vista beta (with up to 8 WinXP/Vista versions on the menu at one point). I
even learned how to use the cryptic BCDEdit.exe (took all of an hour!).
That was before NeoSmart (http://neosmart.net/) wrote EasyBCD.) But I don't
have time to refute all the mis-information in your posts.

The Golden Rule of dual-booting is to install the NEWEST Windows LAST. If
you do that, the process is easy and automatic, because Vista Setup knows
just what to do when it finds WinXP already installed. But WinXP hasn't the
slightest idea what to do about Vista, which didn't exist until about 5
years after WinXP's Setup was written. Since you want to add WinXP AFTER
Vista is installed and running, you MUST deal with one work-around or
another. It CAN be done; I've done it and so have many others. In fact,
you apparently already have that working, because you've been dual-booting,
haven't you?

Now, you want to remove WinXP and leave only Vista. That should not be hard
to do. I told you how in my first post, except that I was missing a lot of
information about your computer. You've added some information in later
posts, but still haven't clearly laid out:
1. How many HDDs?
2. How are they/it partitioned?
3. Which is the System Partition? (DO NOT USE DRIVE LETTERS!! Tell me
whether it is the first partition on the second HDD - or some other!)
4. Which is Vista's Boot Volume? (ditto!)
5. Which is WinXP's Boot Volume? (ditto again)

With that info, we should be able to give you a short and simple plan to
remove WinXP and use only Vista.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)
 
R.C:

I am also trying to delete the XP dual boot so Vista will keep system
restore points.

I have one hard drive, partitioned into a Primary Partition and Logical Dive
with XP. I installed XP onto the logical Partition "D", leaving the primary
partition empty.
I then installed Vista in the Primary Partition "C" to get a dual boot system.

Disk management under Vista reports:

Primary Partition: C: Healty(System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,
Primary Partition) -- Vista is contained in the partition and contains
the BOOT directory

Logical Drive: D: (logical drive) drive contains the XP copy.

I would like to remove the XP, delete the logical drive and expand the
Primary Partition to use up the disk space.

Thank you for your help.

Bryan
 
Hi, Bryan.

You have the ideal hard drive organization to delete WinXP and leave only
Vista. ;<)

Just boot into Vista and use Disk Management to delete your Drive D:. Since
it is a Logical Drive in the Extended Partition, you will also need to
delete the extended partition, which is now empty, but "has dibs" on all
that space. Then Right-click on Drive C: and Extend volume... to use up all
the newly-free space.

Caveat: I haven't actually done this, Bryan, so proceed with caution. I've
deleted partitions and created others in their space. I've extended a few
volumes using Disk Management in Vista, and a few by using DiskPart.exe in
WinXP and Win2K. But Vista changes how we create and delete Extended
Partitions, and also in the use of Dynamic Volumes, and I've not used those
enough to be completely comfortable with them. I think that what I just
told you to do will work just as I said, but go slowly, reading each screen
in the Wizard to be sure that it is going to do what you expect. And don't
forget the very helpful Help file in Disk Management. As always, be sure
you have a good backup, just in case.

Before deleting Drive D:, be sure that you've saved any files that you might
need in the future, especially your data.

After deleting Drive D:, you might as well clean up Drive C: by eliminating
the few small WinXP boot-up files that you won't need anymore: C:\NTLDR,
C:\NTDETECT.COM and C:\Boot.ini, plus C:\Bootsect.bak, the 512-byte file
that preserves the WinXP-style boot sector. If you still see WinXP as a
choice in the opening menu, you can use BCDEdit.exe or a third-party option
like EasyBCD to edit Vista's startup file.

I've never had the "disappearing restore points" problem; I've seen plenty
of other users complain about it, so I'll let them comment on that point.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta in Vista Ultimate x64)

Bryan said:
R.C:

I am also trying to delete the XP dual boot so Vista will keep system
restore points.

I have one hard drive, partitioned into a Primary Partition and Logical
Dive
with XP. I installed XP onto the logical Partition "D", leaving the
primary
partition empty.
I then installed Vista in the Primary Partition "C" to get a dual boot
system.

Disk management under Vista reports:

Primary Partition: C: Healty(System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump,
Primary Partition) -- Vista is contained in the partition and contains
the BOOT directory

Logical Drive: D: (logical drive) drive contains the XP copy.

I would like to remove the XP, delete the logical drive and expand the
Primary Partition to use up the disk space.

Thank you for your help.

Bryan
Click to expand...
<SNIP>
 
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