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This isn't exactly a PC gaming problem, but It annoys me...
A few months ago, I put my dad's old hard drive into my pc as a secondary hard disk. On my C drive I had windows ME, and I was using the other drive as a file dump, for mp3's, downloads and that sort of crap.
I get lent a copy of windows XP by a friend, and when I installed it, I did it on my second hard drive. After doing that, every time I turned on my comp, a dos screen asked me which OS I wanted to start.
Eventually as the 30 day trial ran out, I decided to get my own upgrade copy ( the copy I had borowed didnt support upgrade ). I looked for a way to uninstall windows xp on my second disk, but couldnt find anything, so I just formatted the disk.
I installed my own copy of windows xp on my main disk, and it work fine. The problem is that the os selection screen still appears. I only have one OS on my system now, so the screen is of no use to me.
Does anyone know how I can get rid of this? It is really starting to drive me insane...
A few months ago, I put my dad's old hard drive into my pc as a secondary hard disk. On my C drive I had windows ME, and I was using the other drive as a file dump, for mp3's, downloads and that sort of crap.
I get lent a copy of windows XP by a friend, and when I installed it, I did it on my second hard drive. After doing that, every time I turned on my comp, a dos screen asked me which OS I wanted to start.
Eventually as the 30 day trial ran out, I decided to get my own upgrade copy ( the copy I had borowed didnt support upgrade ). I looked for a way to uninstall windows xp on my second disk, but couldnt find anything, so I just formatted the disk.
I installed my own copy of windows xp on my main disk, and it work fine. The problem is that the os selection screen still appears. I only have one OS on my system now, so the screen is of no use to me.
Does anyone know how I can get rid of this? It is really starting to drive me insane...
Windows XP does create a boot.ini file, for your information Uncle Albert, it's a system file and is therefore a hidden file.
You need to open explorer and find a way to view all hidden files, once you've enabled this, look back in the root of your C: drive and you should see the file there.
Any problems post back here.
You need to open explorer and find a way to view all hidden files, once you've enabled this, look back in the root of your C: drive and you should see the file there.
Any problems post back here.
Hmmm, I'm having the same problem with Windows XP. The problem is that a file titled boot.ini is not created with XP! Well, not according to my search. Any ideas anyone?
I only just checked back here, but I managed to sort it out. It was by editing boot.ini, although i wouldnt have known to search for it. I came across it in system/advanced/startup and recovery settings.
There was a bit that looked like this:
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS = "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition"
/fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS = "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition"
/fastdetect
And I just deleted the lower entry. It works fine now :)
There was a bit that looked like this:
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS = "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition"
/fastdetect
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS = "Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition"
/fastdetect
And I just deleted the lower entry. It works fine now :)
Look for the boot.ini file on the master hard drive and delete the reference to WinME out of it and hey presto it should not give you any problems from there on.
Let us know if you doesn't work but a friend of mine has just told me that he had 98 and XP installed on the hard drive with exactly the same thing happening and he edited the file and now never gets asked the question.
Let us know if you doesn't work but a friend of mine has just told me that he had 98 and XP installed on the hard drive with exactly the same thing happening and he edited the file and now never gets asked the question.
ok np. Sorry about the XP upgrade sugestion, i mis read your original post, i see you made a full install of XP now. There is actually no way of sorting this prob thro reged, as all of the info from your dual boot system was saved in your master boot record. As you know a bit about PCs you maybe able to sort it using Partition magic if you so wish. Using that you should be able to let the program remove all data relating to dual bootsystem. You could try fdisk /mbr which clears the master boot record
without touching any files, but it was only designed to work on win95 98 and ME so ud just have to try it. It wont break anything, the mbr will restore when u reboot. Other than that it really is a start over job. Move all data you wish to keep over to your secondary drive or burn stuff you want to keep to cd.
without touching any files, but it was only designed to work on win95 98 and ME so ud just have to try it. It wont break anything, the mbr will restore when u reboot. Other than that it really is a start over job. Move all data you wish to keep over to your secondary drive or burn stuff you want to keep to cd.
That is not really possible. If I format I will lose a lot of software that I no longer have the disk for. I have registry editing experience, I just dont know where to look for this bit. There is no way I could bear to install 2 copys of windows on top of each other. And I have just got xp the way i like it!
I know enough about computers to know that I can do this without having to re-format. I just need someone to tell me where to go from here.
And it wasn't possible to uninstall.
I know enough about computers to know that I can do this without having to re-format. I just need someone to tell me where to go from here.
And it wasn't possible to uninstall.
Ok i will try and explain this one, hopefully with the help of other people. Basically what you did right at the beginning was to install a dual boot system. ME knew this and so did XP. Just by formatting your second drive had done nothing but remove the data you had on it. Unfortunately there is still data coresponding to the XP install within your boot record and maybe registry entries on your primary windows install. I imagine editing your registry could be dangerous for you so all I can suggest and it would be what I would do is uninstall XP that you have upgraded to from your primary drive, and also format that drive. Start again FRESH. You made a mistake of deleting stuff rather than uninstalling it. Deleting leaves nasty stuff behind, as you have found out. Once you have formatted both drives again, install ME as before and then upgrade to XP.
good luck and have fun
good luck and have fun
This isn't exactly a PC gaming problem, but It annoys me...
A few months ago, I put my dad's old hard drive into my pc as a secondary hard disk. On my C drive I had windows ME, and I was using the other drive as a file dump, for mp3's, downloads and that sort of crap.
I get lent a copy of windows XP by a friend, and when I installed it, I did it on my second hard drive. After doing that, every time I turned on my comp, a dos screen asked me which OS I wanted to start.
Eventually as the 30 day trial ran out, I decided to get my own upgrade copy ( the copy I had borowed didnt support upgrade ). I looked for a way to uninstall windows xp on my second disk, but couldnt find anything, so I just formatted the disk.
I installed my own copy of windows xp on my main disk, and it work fine. The problem is that the os selection screen still appears. I only have one OS on my system now, so the screen is of no use to me.
Does anyone know how I can get rid of this? It is really starting to drive me insane...
A few months ago, I put my dad's old hard drive into my pc as a secondary hard disk. On my C drive I had windows ME, and I was using the other drive as a file dump, for mp3's, downloads and that sort of crap.
I get lent a copy of windows XP by a friend, and when I installed it, I did it on my second hard drive. After doing that, every time I turned on my comp, a dos screen asked me which OS I wanted to start.
Eventually as the 30 day trial ran out, I decided to get my own upgrade copy ( the copy I had borowed didnt support upgrade ). I looked for a way to uninstall windows xp on my second disk, but couldnt find anything, so I just formatted the disk.
I installed my own copy of windows xp on my main disk, and it work fine. The problem is that the os selection screen still appears. I only have one OS on my system now, so the screen is of no use to me.
Does anyone know how I can get rid of this? It is really starting to drive me insane...