How to Get Rid of Multi-boot WIN 98SE Option Leaving Only WIN 2000?

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JOHNCHAP2

My startup is a multi boot to MS WIN2000, MS WINDOWS, or MS WIN2000
Recovery Console. I ended up with this several years ago when I
upgraded from Win 98SE to WIN 2000. I want to get rid of the MS
WINDOWS option and totally remove the old version so I can convert the
drive from FAT32 to NTFS.

Will removing the MS WINDOWS line from the BOOT.INI and WINBOOT.INI
files do this or do I need to do some other things as well?
Incidently, there are at least two versions of each of these files
with today's date.

Can I then simply remove the WINDOWS directory from the C Drive
without screwing things up? Do I need to do anything else?

For whatever it is worth, there is only one partition of C drive.

Thanks in advance for assistance
 
JOHNCHAP2 said:
My startup is a multi boot to MS WIN2000, MS WINDOWS, or MS WIN2000
Recovery Console. I ended up with this several years ago when I
upgraded from Win 98SE to WIN 2000. I want to get rid of the MS
WINDOWS option and totally remove the old version so I can convert the
drive from FAT32 to NTFS.

Will removing the MS WINDOWS line from the BOOT.INI and WINBOOT.INI
files do this or do I need to do some other things as well?
Incidently, there are at least two versions of each of these files
with today's date.

Can I then simply remove the WINDOWS directory from the C Drive
without screwing things up? Do I need to do anything else?

For whatever it is worth, there is only one partition of C drive.

Thanks in advance for assistance
Click to expand...

You can do it like this:
1. Boot into Win2000.
2. Remove the Win98 reference from c:\boot.ini.
3. Rename the folder c:\windows to c:\Windows.98
4. Wait a week.
5. If all is well, delete c:\Windows.98 and empty the Recycle Bin.
 
JOHNCHAP2 said:
My startup is a multi boot to MS WIN2000, MS WINDOWS, or MS WIN2000
Recovery Console. I ended up with this several years ago when I
upgraded from Win 98SE to WIN 2000. I want to get rid of the MS
WINDOWS option and totally remove the old version so I can convert the
drive from FAT32 to NTFS.

Will removing the MS WINDOWS line from the BOOT.INI and WINBOOT.INI
files do this or do I need to do some other things as well?
Incidently, there are at least two versions of each of these files
with today's date.

Can I then simply remove the WINDOWS directory from the C Drive
without screwing things up? Do I need to do anything else?

For whatever it is worth, there is only one partition of C drive.

Thanks in advance for assistance
Click to expand...

Removing the MS Windows from the Boot.ini will mean that it never appears
again in the startup menu. My recollections are that Winboot has
nothing to do
with Win2K, so you should be able to dump it. Wiping the Windows folder
should
then remove MS Windows.

However, in your shoes I would wipe the drive clean, reformat in NTFS
and reinstall Win2K.
Clean installations are always better than upgrades.

Good luck!

RF
 
Removing the MS Windows from the Boot.ini will mean that it never appears
again in the startup menu. My recollections are that Winboot has
nothing to do
Click to expand...
All things being equal, I would fully agree with you; and if I only
had 6-10 applications to worry about I probably would. However, with
5+ years of installs and upgrades(perhaps 50-100 different
applications, add-ins, and plug-ins), and unlikely to find many of the
source files or the licensing info, starting from scratch would be
daunting and incredibly time consuming. Adding to the mess, it is my
near time intent to upgrade to XP (I have had the unopened disk for
about 6 months), and then migrate to a faster computer to better
handle the huge graphic files I deal with.

It does turn out that the C:\WINDOWS folder contains files still being
used at least by Adobe Photoshop CS2, so I am leaving it alone for the
moment. If I had some spare time (which I do not in spite of being
retired) I would specifically identify those files and get rid of the
rest. As it is, I will just leave the directory alone for the moment
since it takes up less than 1GB.

But I appreciate your input.
 
All things being equal, I would fully agree with you; and if I only
had 6-10 applications to worry about I probably would. However, with
5+ years of installs and upgrades(perhaps 50-100 different
applications, add-ins, and plug-ins), and unlikely to find many of the
source files or the licensing info, starting from scratch would be
daunting and incredibly time consuming. Adding to the mess, it is my
near time intent to upgrade to XP (I have had the unopened disk for
about 6 months), and then migrate to a faster computer to better
handle the huge graphic files I deal with.

It does turn out that the C:\WINDOWS folder contains files still being
used at least by Adobe Photoshop CS2, so I am leaving it alone for the
moment. If I had some spare time (which I do not in spite of being
retired) I would specifically identify those files and get rid of the
rest. As it is, I will just leave the directory alone for the moment
since it takes up less than 1GB.

But I appreciate your input.
Click to expand...


Your problem is unusual and involved.

What I gather of your software/hardware system is that it has partition
structure problems, op sys structure problems, and application structure
problems and you find need to move your applications platform to a faster
system.

First off, unless you are driven to XP by applications such as CS3, I'd
not make the move to XP were I you.

As I understand the problem you are facing, you do not clearly see how to
move your data and applications platform to new hardware.

It looks like your task will be a process. If you like, send mail to
'throwawayaddr(at)taynsn(dot)zapto(dot)org' and we'll chew on it.


regards,
 
It does turn out that the C:\WINDOWS folder contains files still being
used at least by Adobe Photoshop CS2, so I am leaving it alone for the
moment. If I had some spare time (which I do not in spite of being
retired) I would specifically identify those files and get rid of the
rest. As it is, I will just leave the directory alone for the moment
since it takes up less than 1GB.
Click to expand...

It's hard to say what exactly will happen with the way you have it
setup. In the future you might want to consider installing applications
on a separate partition than your OS and data files on yet another.

This way minimizes the "trauma" from a major upgrade or removal of an
old OS on your boot up menu.

Removing the relevant lines from boot.ini will eliminate that boot
option albeit leaving it there wouldn't really hurt. All that would
happen is if you tried to boot 98 and it's not there it will stop and
complain.

The way I'd approach this is first do a complete backup of everything.
Next I'd make a decision about how much disk space to allocate to what
ever. The I'd use Partition Magic to delete 98. I'd do any partition
moving operations: Example - move 2000 down to reclaim the space 98 used.

You'll need a new Primary for XP so you may have to shrink a partition
to create some empty space. IIRC it's recommended that you place XP
*after* 2000.

So you'd have

Primary 1: W2K
Primary 2: XP
IF no more primary partitions are needed then add an extended partition
containing logical drives (e.g., D, E, F, etc).

Now what will probably happen is some apps will need to be reinstalled.
If you are lucky it won't be many. But the OS's should boot up despite a
few applications not being installed properly.

Another way to approach the applications problem is to create a logical
drive to move them to first. This might minimize the amount of work you
have to do after installing XP.

I've done this type of thing many times. While it's not really difficult
it is time consuming, figure at least 2-3 days work to sort it all out
to perfection. But done properly you'll be up and running your main apps
in a few hours.

It is really important to have a backup here as you are risking losing
track of or control over a lot of data (as in bytes). Also it is very
important to have a good plan so think everything through first. You
should also save a copy of your original partition setup in order to
restore that if you have problems. IOW, open fdisk and write down the
size and order that you started with.

BTW, you'll find that reinstalling some apps involves nothing more than
finding the executable (e.g., some_program.exe) and creating a link to
it on the desktop and the programs menu.
 
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