Re: Deleting "Previous Windows Operating System on C:"

"Daave" <daave@xxxxxxxxxxx> wrote in
news:eUfXAw5QKHA.1796@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx:

Boris wrote:
While trying to do a clean install of XP, my system locked up in the
middle of the first phase of Setup (copying files), and I had to
power off with the on/off button.

I started the clean install process from the beginning, and was able
to complete the install. But, I now have a system that starts up
with a dual boot choice:

Previous Windows Operating System on C:
Microsoft Windows XP Professional (this one is the default and is
alwasy highlighted)

I have 30 seconds to decide.

If I hit Previous Windows Operating System on C:, the screen goes
black with nothing but a blinking cursor, and remains like this.

If I let the system boot to Microsoft Windows XP Professional (this
one is the default and is alwasy highlighted), all is well.

I'd like to get rid of the failed XP install on C: But, when I go
into Disk Management, and do a Properties on C:, there are two
partitions, C and D. D is very small, but it shows that it is the
MBR.

Is there any way to get rid of D, without harming the successful
install on C? Can I put an MBR on D? If so, how do I later get rid
of D?

The only other workaround, I guess, is to set the timeout for the
dual boot decision to 3 seconds, the minimum allowed, and let the
system boot to Microsoft Windows XP Professional, by default, in 3
seconds.

Another thought is to modify the boot.ini file and eliminate the line
that says "Previous Windows Operating System on C:". But, I'm afraid
to do this for fear the system may not boot, and, I'll still have
partition D.

I have read 8 different articles, some by Microsoft, on how to fix
this, but none seems like it will work.

Any ideas?

The easiest way (normally) is to perform the clean install once more
-- the proper way. That means deleting all the partitions and
creating a brand new partition. But I did see your other post and
realize you thought you needed to do this in a very convoluted way
because of your inability to boot off the XP installation CD. I would
still be inclined to address the problem of not being able to boot off
the CD. Perhaps you do need to clear your CMOS or upgrade to a newer
BIOS veresion (assuming everything is connected properly).



Hi,

I went into the BIOS and read the event log. There was one listing that
said CMOS battery failure, but just one. There were a lot keyboard
failure listings. I don't know why, because the keyboard always came up
fine on the POST screen, and operated properly all the time when in
Windows. But, since the CMOS battery was probably the original battery
from circa 2001, I replaced it, thinking that that might cure my
inability to boot from CD. Nope.

Curiosity got to me, and I decided to clear the BIOS. I did, by
removing the motherboard BIOS jumper, but still no boot from CD.

Finally, I found the BIOS update on the Gateway site. I was running
with version P12, and the newest version was P13, dated August 2001. I
had to put it on a FAT floppy (not NT), and the instructions said to
boot from this floppy. When I tried, I got invalid BOOT diskette,
insert proper diskette in A. Oh, no. I used the Win98SE floppy to boot
up the machine into DOS, and then removed the Win98SE floppy, and
inserted the BIOS 'boot' disk. I logged on to it, and clicked on the
autoexec.bat on the floppy. The BIOS update program came up, and I
installed the update successfully. When the update was completed, the
instructions on screen were to remove the floppy and press enter, and
the machine was supposed to reboot. I'm not sure how this was supposed
to happen, since the machine was set to boot from floppy, and there
would be no floppy in the machine. But I removed the boot floppy, and
pressed enter. The screen said no operating system found on C (normally
it would say invalid BOOT diskette if there's no floppy in A, and set to
boot from floppy). I had to press the power button off, and restart
into the BIOS (keeping my fingers crossed the BIOS upgrade worked -- it
did report BIOS versin P13), and set to boot from the hard drive. I
did, and it booted up just fine. I then restarted and set to boot from
CD, but it still wouldn't boot from the XP CD. Oh, well. I tried. I'm
calling it quits trying to solve this. It may be a hardware problem
that I just can't diagnose, and it's not all the important. The only
time I'd need to start from CD is if I was going to do a clean install.
Maybe I'll just make an image of the system before I gunk it up too
much. Oh, wonder if I have to be able to boot from CD to install an
image.

By the way, I just installed a Linksys WMP54G wireless adapter card in
the machine. I didn't use the Linksys install CD, but instead let
Windows install it's native drivers and networking interface. It works
just fine, with excellent signal strength. Previously, I had it
connected to a D-link wireless router, but sitting right next to the
router connected with an ethernet cable. I was going to run ethernet
into the garage, which is the final destination for this machine, but I
thought I'd try a wireless card. I hope the signal is still good when I
move it into the gargage, about 30' away. We'll see. If not, I'll run
ethernet. (I don't mind running the cable, I just hate putting the
connectors on. My eyes aren't what they used to be <g>.)

Here are the items that the update addressed, per the readme.txt file
within the update folder:

Reason for Update

Option to enable or disable the ISA Enable Bit on PCI bridges.
Adds D-stepping core support for latest generation processors.
Adds WFM 2.0 Remote Lockout support.
Adds support for the Security Freeze Lock command on resume from S3 to
IDE devices that support the Security feature set. Adds workaround for
Windows 98 SE issue where ATAPI devices are not reprogrammed on resume
from Suspend-to-RAM (S3). Implements Force Network Boot feature that
allows users to force the computer to start to network by pressing a hot
key. Fixes issue where the computer was always reporting 80-conductor
IDE cable type (regardless of actual cable type) when certain ATAPI
devices were connected as the slave device on an IDE channel. Adds
support for PCI IDE Bus Mastering (DMA) for BIOS INT 13h hard disk reads
and writes on IDE devices that support IDE Bus Mastering. Adds Mode 5
(UDMA/100) option to the IDE UDMA Mode. Corrects functionality of IDE
PIO Mode. Fixes issue where BIOS was incorrectly reporting UDMA modes on
IDE devices that do not support UDMA. Sets ISA ENABLE bits on PCI
bridges that do not have VGA behind them. Adds support for doing 32-bit
IDE PIO mode data transfers inside BIOS INT 13h. Fixes issue where ATAPI
Removable Devices that support UDMA modes were not getting programmed
for UDMA mode. Updates the display of the processor BIOS update
information to account for the new naming convention. Adds the display
of UDMA mode for ARMD. Sets Wake on Modem Ring default to Power On.
Fixes an issue where the Fault Tolerant Boot Block Test would fail and
not be able to boot if ECC was enabled during the test. Fixes the
incorrect display of hard disk drive capacity for larger hard disk
drives.

Thanks for the ideas, encouragement.
.

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