Re: removing windows boot manager

John John wrote:
How many boot paths are there in the boot.ini file? Maybe the corresponding Vista entry is already deleted and all you want to do is have no boot menu show at startup? If the pc boots to the correct default Operating System then you can just change the timeout= value in the boot.ini file. Paste the contents of your boot.ini file here so we can have a look at it.

If you already know which line to remove in the boot.ini file or if you want to change the timeout= value you can edit the file (Use Notepad) but before you do so you should do the following:

1- Make a backup copy of the boot.ini file, you can save it in the same location as bootini.bak. Use Notepad to do this.

2- Do you have a diskette drive on your pc? Then make a boot diskette for the pc. On the XP computer (not a Windows 9x pc!) format the diskette. Copy the following files to the diskette:

NTDETECT.COM
ntldr
boot.ini

3- Try the diskette you just made to make sure it works. Reboot the computer and go in the BIOS and set the computer to boot to diskette first. Put the diskette in the pc and reboot. If the pc can boot to your Windows installation from the diskette then you can edit the boot.ini file in confidence knowing that you can restart the pc. It might seem like work for nothing but if you damage the boot.ini file and the computer refuses to start it will be easier and faster using this boot diskette than going through the Recovery Console method to regain the Operating System.

Also, you can change these boot settings by doing the following:

1 - Right click "My Computer"
2 - Select "Properties"
3 - Click on the "Advanced" tab
4 - The boot options can be changed in the "Startup and Recovery" options.

Changing these settings is not really complicated and it should take less time to do than it took to write (or read) this message ;-) If you are unsure paste the contents of the file here and we can suggest changes.

John

gls858 wrote:
John John wrote:

Use the msconfig tool and have it check the boot paths for you.

fixmbr is not the tool to use for this. You would only need to use the Recovery Console if the pc couldn't boot and the tool to use for this purpose would be Bootcfg /rebuild, but you don't need to do this, use msconfig instead.

John

gls858 wrote:

I loaded test copy of Vista on a second drive. I have since removed it and formated the drive but the boot manager remains. Is using the recovery console and fixMBR the only way to get rid of it?

gls858


Thanks for the reply. Ran msconfig, selected, boot.ini tab, hit the
check all boot paths and got a message that all boot lines are OK.

Any other suggestions?

gls858

Thanks John. I'm at the office now so I'll check this out when I get home.
IIRC there is just the one line in the boot.ini. I'll try your other suggestion and post back later with the results

gls858
.

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