BleepingComputer.com: How Do I Delete Xp In A Dual Boot With Vista

have a home built system that ran Windows XP home for almost a year before Windows Vista came out. I did my homework and checked on the upgrade capability of my installation and two days after Vista Ultimate came out, I installed it on a second drive. That date was January 30th. I have really not had a great deal of problems. Most have been solved by Windows updates and updates for various hardware. What I want to do now is to eliminate the Windows XP installation. I have it on a 100 gig drive and would like to be able to use that drive for data storage. Right now Windows XP is on C: and Vista is on V:. I also have another drive that is partioned into a D and E drive.

I just don't go back and forth into XP like I did at first (it has been several months since I have been in to XP!)

I have tried to read some of the suggestions I've found on the interent but am confused by what steps I need to take.

I have shortened the timer from the 30 seconds it takes to boot into XP or Vista but really would like it gone.

Thanks to all for any directions on how I can finally get rid of Windows XP.

It depends on which partition that the boot sector is on. The easiest solution would be to use a BCD editor such as Vista Boot Pro or EasyBCD (both free - google for them) to eliminate the XP entry.

Then, some careful pruning of the C: drive should allow you to keep the boot sector and still free up the space on your C: drive.

John,

Here is the information from my Disk Management:

Disk O: Basic 298 Gigabytes OnLine Computer (V) drive (Vista) Healthy, Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition

Disk 1: Basic 149.01 Gigabytes OnLine Computer (D) drive-Healthy Primary Partition 78.13 Gigabytes and Computer (E) drive-Healthy Primary
Partition 70.88

Disk 2: Basic 93.37 Gigabytes OnLine Computer © Windows XP drive Healthy, System, Active Partition 13 Megabytes unallocated

ALL DRIVES ARE FORMATTED IN NTFS

As you can see, I think the Disk O drive that has Vista on it has all the boot up information necessary. I can't understand why I just can't delete Disk 2 (C drive with Windows XP) by reformatting.

I will check out Easy BCD and Vista Boot Pro. This shouldn't be so difficult. It was easy to set up a Dual Boot.

From what you've posted it'll be as easy as:
1) Deleting the stuff on the XP partition
2) Modifying the boot info to remove the XP boot stuff

To be extra, extra sure - disconnect the XP drive and then try to boot up. If it's successful, then you can format the XP drive without any concerns.

John,

I've tried formatting the XP drive and the computer won't let me. I could go in and begin to delete folders and programs off the XP drive. Not sure if it will let me delete Windows XP though.

Not sure what to do to modify the boot info to remove the XP Boot Stuff.

Could you explain for me. Thanks!!

What exact message does the computer give you when trying to format the drive?
Are you trying to do this from Vista? Have you tried booting after unplugging the XP drive?

John,

I unhooked the Windows XP Drive C and tried to restart the computer. I got a message saying to load the Windows CD (possibly meant DVD for Windows Vista.) Something about a bootldr. I downloaded and have the Vista Boot Pro 3.3 loaded but not sure how to proceed with it. I can open it and there is a tab to Manage BCD OS Entries. I can hilight Microsoft Windows Vista and there is a box to check saying Set as Default.

Also there is a box to Change Boot Drive. If I check it, I can leave the drive letter that I have Vista on. Just not sure.

There is also a tab for System Bootloader. None are checked. If I check on Choose a System Bootloader to install I am given the choice of 1) Windows Vista Bootloader (Uninstall Legacy Bootloader) or 2) Windows Legacy Bootloader (Uninstall Vista Bootloader) I am pretty certain I would want to check the first one and install Windows Vista Bootloader and uninstall Legacy Booptloader (asume that is Windows XP)

Now there is also a place to check System Bootloader Install Options

1) All Drives 2) System Partition and 3) Specific Drive.

One loast box that could be checked that is optional is Force Bootloader Install.

My thinking is that the System Bootloader Install option should be a specific drive. That drive being the V drive (one I have Vista on)

I hope you can enlighten me. It is a neat program and I think will help me rid the computer of Windows XP.

Thanks for your help.

It would seem that your system does indeed boot off the XP drive before loading Vista.

I would leave the XP drive unhooked and use the Vista DVD to perform a startup repair - this should enable you to boot into Vista without the XP drive. Once that's done, then you're free to format the XP drive (make sure to do the boot sector also) and use it as you see fit. If you don't format the boot sector on the XP drive, then you'll have to instruct your BIOS to disregard that drive when it tries to boot.

In order to format the boot sector, you'll have to use a low-level formatting utility from the manufacturer of the hard drive. It may also be called something like "initializing" - but the point is that you want the drive to be wiped clean so that the system won't try and boot from it.

John,

What if I copied the Boot Ini, ntldr, and NT DETECT from the Windows XP drive and pasted them into the Vista drive. Then I could delete them on the Windows XP drive. Wouldn't that make the Vista drive the drive that would boot?

Not sure but it makes sense unless Vista uses a different type of Boot ini, ntldr, and NT DETECT.

What do you think?

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Vista uses different files - these ones are just a hangover from the original XP installation and the new Vista boot sector placed on Disk2 points to the Vista and not the XP boot files on the System Partition on Disk 2. They, in turn, were then loading Vista on the boot partition on Disk 0.

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Disk Management System Partition is the partition booted FROM.
Disk Management Boot Partition is the partition booted TO.
This is the normal Microsoft Terminology.

Since Vista is on a Primary partition you can simply set that Hard Drive as the Boot Drive in the BIOS settings and then get Vista to repair its boot sector and boot files. As already indicated by usasma a Startup Repair should fix this.

PS Afterthought: you may possibly have to set the primary partition on Disk 0 as active if it is not already set that way.

Thank you for the explanation. I checked and my 0 drive (Vista) does not show it is Active. The 2 drive (Win XP) is active. I understand how to set the bios so it will boot from the DVD. I understand how to unhook the XP drive and also how to do a start up repair.

I don't know how to make the 0 drive (Vista) active. I think once you can help me to understand how to do that I should be able to tackle taking care of this problem. Thank you for being patient and explaning what I need to do. I really appreciate it.

WinXP's disk management can "Mark Partition as Active" so I presume its similar in Vista. If no good then Fdisk from an msdos boot floppy should be able to set the partition active. Indeed as can a number of partitioning tools such as BootIt-NG and GParted.

If you Fdisk V: you will totally screw up your Vista bootsec.
There isn't a problem with what you want to do but, reading through the posts - Do you have a Vista DVD?

I did everything as suggested and still no success. I set my Vista drive as active (did that through disk manager). Went into BIOS and reset the Boot Order of the Hard Drives so that Vista Drive would be the first in order. Also, set boot order to cd. Restarted with Vista Installation DVD in drive. I was able to bring up the start of the Vista Installation. I chose English. Continued. Selected Repair and then the first item under repair to repair Startup. It found the Vista installation and did a quick repair. I took out the Vista DVD and restarted. When it restarted I went back into BIOS and set the boot order for the hard drive (using the Vista as the first order for the hard drive!). Restarted and it came to a screen saying no bootldr and wanted me to hit ctrl-alt-delete to restart.

I then tried the same sequence with the Win XP drive disconnected and the same thing happened. The only way I could get back into Vista was to reset the Boot Order for the Hard Drives to Win XP as the first order. After that I was able to get back into Vista.

What am I missing? I thought I did everything as listed!!

You could read Reinstalling Vista Bootloader and see if it is in accord with what you actually did. If there is still no active partition then it still needs resetting.

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Fdisk has a number of options which include just looking at the partition information and of setting an active partition. The former writes nothing to the drive and the latter only changes one byte on the mbr from 0x00 to 0x80 and doesn't touch the boot sector at all. The greatest risk is probably doing things to the incorrect hard drive by mistake. BootIt-NG would be my own favorite app for these manoeuvres nowadays.

Symantec has, an originally PowerQuest, PTedit utility whereby you can set this value manually as an alternative method. It can be downloaded from their ftp folder. I would avoid using the PTedit32 version for windows as it may not be compatible with Vista but would be quite OK from XP. The PTedit version is a DOS version that can be added-to an run from an MSDOS boot floppy if so desired.