Removing Dual Booting and keeping both O/Ss

  • Thread starter Thread starter George
  • Start date Start date
G

George

My system now has dual booting - WinMe and Win2K. I have read MS papers on
how to remove one O/S and keep the other, but have not found any yet on how
to remove dual booting and retain both systems and data..

Any advice or links?

GM
 
Dave Patrick said:
Easy to do but remove which one?
Click to expand...

Dave,

I want to keep both, just remove the dual booting. The machine has both IDE
and ATA100 controllers and allows dual booting by placing one OS on the IDE
and the other on the ATA100 and choice is made in BIOS. I prefer this
because it keeps the systems totally separate.

I only got into this accidentally by trying to make a clean install of W2K
(should have removed WinMe first). You can read the saga in another thread
(John-John was assisting), but system is now working OK as a dual boot.

I could remove W2K and start a completely new installation, but would prefer
it if I could remove the dual booting and retain both.

Regards,

GM
 
Thanks Dave,

WinMe seems straight forward, but I think I will backup Win2K and work on it
first so I know it will work.

WinMe drive does have boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com, bootsect.dos in the
root directory, but not pagefile.sys or ntbootdd.sys .

On the Win2K drive, there are none of these files (even when I show all
files) except for pagefile.sys - Presumably the dual boot uses the ones on
the WinMe drive?

I made a boot floppy that boots W2K. I copied boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com
to it from the WinMe boot drive and I added the ATA100 driver which I
renamed ntbootdd.sys (not sure if I needed to do this). Can I copy the same
files to the Win2K drive and have it boot directly without need for the
floppy?

The WinMe drive is on IDE controller, but Win2K is on ATA100 controller. Do
I need to change multi( ) to scsi( ) if I want to boot directly?

Thanks

GM


Dave Patrick said:
Which OS?


For WinME;
You can boot with your WinME startup disk and issue the command;
sys C:
this will rewrite the boot sector, then you can delete these files boot.ini,
ntldr, ntdetect.com, bootsect.dos, pagefile.sys and possibly ntbootdd.sys
from the root of the System partition C:\.


For Windows 2000;
Control Panel|System|Advanced|Startup and Recovery, choose the correct
System Startup option as default, then you'll need to delete the options you
want removed from the boot.ini, it's a hidden, system file in the root of
the System partition C:\. So you'll need to show-all-files, hidden, system
in Explorer. You should end up with something like this. The timeout value
is not functional when there is only one startup choice.

The line your going to remove from the boot.ini will be similar to;
C:\="Microsoft Windows"


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect

(rdisk(x) and partition(y) may vary depending on your situation.)


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Dave,
|
| I want to keep both, just remove the dual booting. The machine has both
IDE
| and ATA100 controllers and allows dual booting by placing one OS on the
IDE
| and the other on the ATA100 and choice is made in BIOS. I prefer this
| because it keeps the systems totally separate.
|
| I only got into this accidentally by trying to make a clean install of W2K
| (should have removed WinMe first). You can read the saga in another thread
| (John-John was assisting), but system is now working OK as a dual boot.
|
| I could remove W2K and start a completely new installation, but would
prefer
| it if I could remove the dual booting and retain both.
|
| Regards,
|
| GM
Click to expand...
 
Answers Below:

Dave Patrick said:
scsi syntax is used to indicate that Windows 2000 will load a boot device
driver and use that driver to access the boot partition. Normally not
required.
Click to expand...

OK - I thought W2k may need the ATA100 drivers so as to be able to access
the ATA100 controller and drives. (It asks for, and needs them if I attempt
to do a repair from the Win2K CD).
Are you drive swapping? If so why?
Click to expand...

No, not swapping drives?? - They stay where they are, but I have made a
small change: WinME boot still on IDE controller primary and Win2K (not yet
booting!) now on ATA100 primary and a Data drive still on ATA primary slave.
WinMe now seems to be disk 0, Win2K Disk1 and Data Disk2.

GM
 
Dave Patrick said:
*** This leaves me not understanding what and why but I guess that's OK.
Click to expand...

Dave,
I was able to get boot drives separated and booting individually.

BUT, I had to use the Win2K CD to repair the Win2K boot drive in order to
get it to boot without using the floppy. Unfortunately, it is a SP 2 CD and
it messed things up a bit so, instead of going through updating an
installation that might have problems, I will reinstall a clean version of
W2K. I coulda/shoulda done this earlier, but as a result of this little
challenge, I learned quite a bit!

Thanks for the help.

GM
 
Easy to do but remove which one?

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| My system now has dual booting - WinMe and Win2K. I have read MS papers
on
| how to remove one O/S and keep the other, but have not found any yet on
how
| to remove dual booting and retain both systems and data..
|
| Any advice or links?
|
| GM
|
|
 
Which OS?


For WinME;
You can boot with your WinME startup disk and issue the command;
sys C:
this will rewrite the boot sector, then you can delete these files boot.ini,
ntldr, ntdetect.com, bootsect.dos, pagefile.sys and possibly ntbootdd.sys
from the root of the System partition C:\.


For Windows 2000;
Control Panel|System|Advanced|Startup and Recovery, choose the correct
System Startup option as default, then you'll need to delete the options you
want removed from the boot.ini, it's a hidden, system file in the root of
the System partition C:\. So you'll need to show-all-files, hidden, system
in Explorer. You should end up with something like this. The timeout value
is not functional when there is only one startup choice.

The line your going to remove from the boot.ini will be similar to;
C:\="Microsoft Windows"


[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000
Professional" /fastdetect

(rdisk(x) and partition(y) may vary depending on your situation.)


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Dave,
|
| I want to keep both, just remove the dual booting. The machine has both
IDE
| and ATA100 controllers and allows dual booting by placing one OS on the
IDE
| and the other on the ATA100 and choice is made in BIOS. I prefer this
| because it keeps the systems totally separate.
|
| I only got into this accidentally by trying to make a clean install of W2K
| (should have removed WinMe first). You can read the saga in another thread
| (John-John was assisting), but system is now working OK as a dual boot.
|
| I could remove W2K and start a completely new installation, but would
prefer
| it if I could remove the dual booting and retain both.
|
| Regards,
|
| GM
 
The files will only exist on the system partition.

scsi syntax is used to indicate that Windows 2000 will load a boot device
driver and use that driver to access the boot partition. Normally not
required.

Are you drive swapping? If so why?


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Thanks Dave,
|
| WinMe seems straight forward, but I think I will backup Win2K and work on
it
| first so I know it will work.
|
| WinMe drive does have boot.ini, ntldr, ntdetect.com, bootsect.dos in the
| root directory, but not pagefile.sys or ntbootdd.sys .
|
| On the Win2K drive, there are none of these files (even when I show all
| files) except for pagefile.sys - Presumably the dual boot uses the ones on
| the WinMe drive?
|
| I made a boot floppy that boots W2K. I copied boot.ini, ntldr,
ntdetect.com
| to it from the WinMe boot drive and I added the ATA100 driver which I
| renamed ntbootdd.sys (not sure if I needed to do this). Can I copy the
same
| files to the Win2K drive and have it boot directly without need for the
| floppy?
|
| The WinMe drive is on IDE controller, but Win2K is on ATA100 controller.
Do
| I need to change multi( ) to scsi( ) if I want to boot directly?
|
| Thanks
|
| GM
 
:
| Answers Below:
| OK - I thought W2k may need the ATA100 drivers so as to be able to access
| the ATA100 controller and drives. (It asks for, and needs them if I
attempt
| to do a repair from the Win2K CD).
*** Normal and expected behavior for starting the recovery console.


| > Are you drive swapping? If so why?
|
| No, not swapping drives?? - They stay where they are, but I have made a
| small change: WinME boot still on IDE controller primary and Win2K (not
yet
| booting!) now on ATA100 primary and a Data drive still on ATA primary
slave.
| WinMe now seems to be disk 0, Win2K Disk1 and Data Disk2.
*** This leaves me not understanding what and why but I guess that's OK.


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
Dave Patrick said:
Very confusing. I don't see how this relates to removing dual-boot.
Click to expand...

Dave,
Not to worry Dave - Everything is now working fine!

I did use your suggestion to Sys C: and remove the boot.ini & other files
from the WinMe drive. Worked fine.

The problem with the Win2K drive, was that even although I moved boot.ini
etc over to it, it would not boot - lacked system files? I was able to
access it using a start-up Win2K diskette that contained boot.ini etc. I
tried using the Win2K CD to repair the boot problem, but I used the fast
repair and I suspect it overwrote some of the SP4 files and caused some
problems. I decided rather than try fixing the installation, best option was
to do a fresh install of W2K (plus all the system and software updates!)

Still completing the W2K installation, but in the end, I will have two
completely separate OSs accessible by switching in BIOS from IDE WinMe drive
to ATA Win2K drive - More cumbersome, but a system that I prefer to dual
booting because it keeps the two OSs completely separate from each other.

Regards,

GM
 
Very confusing. I don't see how this relates to removing dual-boot.

--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Dave,
| I was able to get boot drives separated and booting individually.
|
| BUT, I had to use the Win2K CD to repair the Win2K boot drive in order to
| get it to boot without using the floppy. Unfortunately, it is a SP 2 CD
and
| it messed things up a bit so, instead of going through updating an
| installation that might have problems, I will reinstall a clean version of
| W2K. I coulda/shoulda done this earlier, but as a result of this little
| challenge, I learned quite a bit!
|
| Thanks for the help.
|
| GM
|
|
 
Then your query should have been "how to repair boot sector"

You can start the recovery console and from a command prompt issue the
command;
fixboot
to repair the bootsector.

To start the Recovery Console, start the computer from the Windows 2000
Setup CD or the Windows 2000 Setup floppy disks. If you do not have Setup
floppy disks and your computer cannot start from the Windows 2000 Setup CD,
use another Windows 2000-based computer to create the Setup floppy disks. At
the "Welcome to Setup" screen. Press F10 or R to repair a Windows 2000
installation, and then press C to use the Recovery Console. The Recovery
Console then prompts you for the administrator password. If you do not have
the correct password, Recovery Console does not allow access to the
computer. If an incorrect password is entered three times, the Recovery
Console quits and restarts the computer. Note If the registry is corrupted
or missing or no valid installations are found, the Recovery Console starts
in the root of the startup volume without requiring a password. You cannot
access any folders, but you can carry out commands such as chkdsk, fixboot,
and fixmbr for limited disk repairs. Once the password has been validated,
you have full access to the Recovery Console, but limited access to the hard
disk. You can only access the following folders on your computer: drive
root, %windir% or %systemroot%

(Note: If your drive controller is not natively supported then you'll want
to boot the Windows 2000 install CD-Rom. Then *F6* very early and very
important (at setup is inspecting your system) in the setup to prevent drive
controller detection, and select S to specify additional drivers. Then later
you'll be prompted to insert the manufacturer supplied Windows 2000 driver
for your drive controller in drive "A")


--

Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Dave,
| Not to worry Dave - Everything is now working fine!
|
| I did use your suggestion to Sys C: and remove the boot.ini & other files
| from the WinMe drive. Worked fine.
|
| The problem with the Win2K drive, was that even although I moved boot.ini
| etc over to it, it would not boot - lacked system files? I was able to
| access it using a start-up Win2K diskette that contained boot.ini etc. I
| tried using the Win2K CD to repair the boot problem, but I used the fast
| repair and I suspect it overwrote some of the SP4 files and caused some
| problems. I decided rather than try fixing the installation, best option
was
| to do a fresh install of W2K (plus all the system and software updates!)
|
| Still completing the W2K installation, but in the end, I will have two
| completely separate OSs accessible by switching in BIOS from IDE WinMe
drive
| to ATA Win2K drive - More cumbersome, but a system that I prefer to dual
| booting because it keeps the two OSs completely separate from each other.
|
| Regards,
|
| GM
|
|
 
yes the simply way to remove: Right click Mycomputer, click Properties, click
advanced tab, click Startup and recovery, click drop down arrow for default
operating system, highlight the one you want to boot each time you start your
computer. no more choice
 
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