Uninstalling XP

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Guest

I bought and installed a 2nd hard drive (thought the original was crashing)
and installed XP. I have XP on both C and D drives now. I went to format
the original drive because I don't need 2 instances of XP on my computer. I
cannot format the drive since the "system" files are on that drive. The boot
drive is the "D" drive. How can I correct this?
 
Due to a simple misconfiguration on your part, you cannot format C. Even
though your XP is installed and running on D, the system boot files are on
C, if you format it, your OS on D will no longer boot. You should have
replaced the old drive with the new one, installed XP, then installed the
old drive as slave (D). In order to get your system straightened out you
need to remove the old drive, install the new one by itself, format it, and
reinstall Windows.
 
While I don't think the others are totally correct, it would still be worth
your while to simply remove the old disk, reformat the new one and reinstall
Windows from scratch. The reason is that while Windows can be installed to a
partition with any letter, it must remain that letter. Won't be a problem
except that some applications are hard-coded to install to C:\.

Otherwise, I know there's at least two steps to what you want to do. One is
to use the Recovery Console from the installation CD to run FIXBOOT, and the
other is to move the boot.ini file to the D:\ drive. What more is required,
I don't know for sure. I'll see if I can locate that, or maybe I'll just do
the experiment and report the results. Kinda bored today, anyway.
 
OK, here's what worked. Not sure all of it was necessary, but it certainly
didn't hurt anything.

1. BACKUP YOUR PERSONAL FILES! Murphy's Law, dontcha know.

2. In Folder Options, View tab, make sure to show both Hidden files and
Protected Operating System files.

3. Copy all the following files (not folders) from the C:\ root to D:\
autoexec.bat
boot.ini
config.sys
io.sys
msdos.sys
ntldr

(Actually, I copies over everything that could be copied.)

4. Shut down, open the box, and pull both hard drives, swap the jumpers so
that the new one is Master and the old one is Slave. Put them back in but
leave the old drive unplugged for now. Also swap them as to position on the
IDE cable. (This presumes your drives are IDE, not SATA. Not sure what to do
with SATA drives.)

5. Start up and immediately insert the Windows CD. You want to boot to it.

6. At the prompt, choose Repair using Recovery Console.

7. After logging on with your password, run the following commands:

FIXBOOT C:
BOOTCFG /REBUILD

That last will scan for Windows installations and prompt you to add the one
it finds. Do so. For the name, use what you wish -- I chose "New Windows".
When prompted for switches, use the following:
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect (space after optin.)

8. Type EXIT. Should boot right up after passing the prompt to boot the CD
(or if you're fast enough, you can remove the CD.)

9. After you get in, right-click C:\BOOT.INI, then Properties, and remove
the Read Only attribute. Click Apply (leave the dialogue open), then
double-click the file and edit out the obsolete lines. Under [Operating
Systems] you'll see three lines that look more or less like this (it's all
one line):
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

You want to leave the one that is labeled New Windows. At this time you can
also change that label, but since you only have one OS in the list, you'll
never see it, anyway. Save the file, close it, then make it Read Only again.
Restart to test.
 
While I don't think the others are totally correct, it would still be
worth your while to simply remove the old disk, reformat the new one and
reinstall Windows from scratch. The reason is that while Windows can be
installed to a partition with any letter, it must remain that letter.
Won't be a problem except that some applications are hard-coded to install
to C:\.
Click to expand...


Although there may still be an occasional application that's hard-coded to
install to C:, I personally haven't run into, or even seen, one for many
years.On my desktop, C: is a media card reader, not a hard drive, and I've
had zero problems as a result, either with applications trying to install on
C: or anything else.
 
I was wondering about that as I wrote it. Just part of my standard blurb for
a long time, but I think it's time to leave it behind.
 
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