Re: remove dual boot

Tech-Archive recommends: Repair Windows Errors & Optimize Windows Performance

Ed Mc wrote:
I have 2 hard drives in the same computer. Each has it's own copy of XP installed. It's a dual boot system. I would like to erase one drive and just use the disk for storage. Is this a simple task? My main disk is formatted NTFS. The one I want to erase is FAT32. Could someone give me a step by step procedure? Google gives answers for dual boot with different OS's. Thanks for any help.
JS wrote:
I also should mention to check you applications load OK while your at it.
I think Pegasus and I are basically thinking along similar lines so I follow that post as well.

Idea is that if the drive you want to keep XP on (I'll call it the main drive) is OK then I'd take a slower and probably over cautious approach in that my next step would then be to disconnect the main drive, connect the drive the you want to remove Windows from (it should now be the only drive connected) and boot from the Windows CD and do basically a clean install but when you reach the point about choosing the location to install you will select 'D' option to delete the partition. The reason I choose the long way is that there is no way you can accidentally delete Windows on the drive you wish to keep.

Then after you have deleted the partition you can shutdown the PC, connect both drives, boot to Windows and use Disk Management to create a new partition on the second drive and format it. But I'm getting ahead of my self.

JS


"JS" <@> wrote in message news:%23CGl%23iR3HHA.600@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
One thing you can try first is to disconnect the cable to the second drive and see if you are able to boot from the drive you wish to keep Windows on. If you can accomplish this (boot to Windows) without problems then you know it's safe to delete the contents of the second drive.

As to how to delete/repartition the second drive I wait until you report back.

JS

"Ed Mc" <namvtn@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message news:c46dnZYc8dDmoiLbnZ2dnUVZ_oaonZ2d@xxxxxxxxxxxxxx
I have 2 hard drives in the same computer. Each has it's own copy of XP installed. It's a dual boot system. I would like to erase one drive and just use the disk for storage. Is this a simple task? My main disk is formatted NTFS. The one I want to erase is FAT32. Could someone give me a step by step procedure? Google gives answers for dual boot with different OS's. Thanks for any help.




Diskmgmt.msc indicates that my E: drive is active. My C: drive is simply Healthy(System).
If I disconnect my slave disk, (where E: drive is located), computer won't boot up. It sees no drives whatsoever. I'm afraid things are really screwed up! Thanks for help, everyone.

.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: Boot Problem
    ... Was either disk set up as a Microsoft dynamic disk? ... Do not change the boot sector signature. ... I ensure all OK by swapping over drives. ... installing XP as it insisted there was no drive to install itself on! ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.hardware)
  • Re: 2 drives needed to boot - how to fix
    ... my cloned drive and my system won't boot. ... seems my system wants both hard drives to be able to boot. ... Which is your primary master disk - the old or the new disk? ... Could you, in effect, start over by making a fresh install of the XP OS ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.general)
  • Re: NTLDR is missing
    ... Make sure that there are no disks in any removable drives when you boot. ... NTLDR is missing, why does it happen? ... Computer hard disk drive is not properly setup in BIOS. ...
    (microsoft.public.windowsxp.basics)
  • Re: [SLE] Problems with initrd after mkinitrd
    ... A disk can have three real heads and report a dozen or a hundred! ... > natural metric for partitioning drives that use LBA. ... > - One, less frequent, is the failure of some of the cloned drives to boot ...
    (SuSE)
  • Re: Grub hangs - two hard drives and a CD
    ... > What you wrote is all based on a wrong assumption that grub numbers drives ... > that the BIOS will call to boot an OS. ... The Bios calls to read disk require the register DL to ...
    (comp.os.linux.setup)