Multiple start up options after wiping hard drive and reinstalling windows

  • Thread starter Thread starter Darrell Eddy
  • Start date Start date
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Darrell Eddy

I recently wiped my hard drive, repartitoned it and reinstalled windows.
Now when the machine starts, there is an option to choose which installation
of windows to start with. Two options are shown, but there is only one copy
of windows on the PC. How does this happen?

Darrell
 
Darrell said:
I recently wiped my hard drive, repartitoned it and reinstalled
windows.

Now when the machine starts, there is an option to choose which
installation of windows to start with. Two options are shown, but
there is only one copy of windows on the PC. How does this happen?
Click to expand...

Sounds like you didn't do everything as cleanly as you lead yourself to
believe.
You could just edit the BOOT.INI to get rid of the extra installation.
 
Darrell said:
I recently wiped my hard drive, repartitoned it and reinstalled windows.
Now when the machine starts, there is an option to choose which installation
of windows to start with. Two options are shown, but there is only one copy
of windows on the PC. How does this happen?

Darrell
Click to expand...

There is a known bug with this where under certain circumstances the
boot.ini file can survive a repartitioning and a format. Just edit the
file and remove the invalid entry.

John
 
Darrell said:
I recently wiped my hard drive, repartitoned it and reinstalled
windows. Now when the machine starts, there is an option to choose
which installation of windows to start with. Two options are
shown, but there is only one copy of windows on the PC. How does
this happen?
Click to expand...

John said:
There is a known bug with this where under certain circumstances the
boot.ini file can survive a repartitioning and a format. Just edit
the file and remove the invalid entry.
Click to expand...

....?

You have to let me in on this one... After all - if you ACTUALLY change the
partitioning and you ACTUALLY format - I don't see it happening. Especially
just *one* file?

I know that you can - without rebooting - destroy the partitioning, recreate
the partitioning and possibly lose nothing. However - if you throw a format
in there - you have at least killed the indexing to all the files.
Everything is gone relative to the new partition.

What is this 'known bug' and where can I read more about it?
 
Shenan said:
...?

You have to let me in on this one... After all - if you ACTUALLY change the
partitioning and you ACTUALLY format - I don't see it happening. Especially
just *one* file?

I know that you can - without rebooting - destroy the partitioning, recreate
the partitioning and possibly lose nothing. However - if you throw a format
in there - you have at least killed the indexing to all the files.
Everything is gone relative to the new partition.

What is this 'known bug' and where can I read more about it?
Click to expand...

If you delete and create/recreate the partition(s) it only stands to
reason that the partition must also be formated before the operating
system can be installed.

It isn't something that happens often but it has been reported since the
early NT days and I have seen reports of it in NT, 2000 and XP groups.
The first impulse is to dismiss the post as an installation error by
novice users who didn't format the drive, but every now and then there
are experienced users who definitely know how to format drives and they
report this peculiarity.

BOOT.INI Not Cleaned Up After Repartitioning
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?kbid=141188

http://groups.google.com/group/micr...fa1aac122?hide_quotes=no#msg_ead6edc2abc9ba34
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...+home+on+a+mates+pc%2C+&#doc_87757168e30abb82
http://groups.google.com/group/micr...b/ffbcb1c0d32caee1?lnk=st&q=#ffbcb1c0d32caee1

John
 
Thaks for your replies,

I have installed and reinstalled MS operating systems on many systems
throughout my career asnan I.T professional and have encountered this
several times. As mentioned in one of the post, I just edit the boot.ini
file and go on with the the process. But I was just curious as to whay this
happens. As I suspected, it is jsut one of many things happens to Windows
systems. And since this is not a systemic problem, the answer can be
illusive.

Darrell Eddy
 
You're welcome.

John

Darrell said:
Thaks for your replies,

I have installed and reinstalled MS operating systems on many systems
throughout my career asnan I.T professional and have encountered this
several times. As mentioned in one of the post, I just edit the boot.ini
file and go on with the the process. But I was just curious as to whay this
happens. As I suspected, it is jsut one of many things happens to Windows
systems. And since this is not a systemic problem, the answer can be
illusive.

Darrell Eddy
Click to expand...
 
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