Removing Dual Boot

[shle]

Was running Windows 2K Pro on drive C: and also wanted to use Win XP so I installed another drive D: and installed XP Pro
on it. The dual drive worked fine but all the initiating files are on C drive.

I changed the boot.in so XP Pro which is on D: starts, this runs fine

Now want to remove the C: drive and the Win 2K Pro files and just have XP Pro that is on D drive for my system but am unsure of what files I need on D drive to let it run without the old C
drive in place.

I copied the ntldr, NTDetect.com, boot.ini, & cmldr files over to D: drive and tried to boot up without the old C: drive and made my D: the master with no joy.

What do I have to do to get my Win XP to boot without C: drive being installed?

 

[Phantasm66]

OOooh! Believe it or not, it can sometimes be trickier doing that than you may believe.

First of all, there is boot code in the master boot record (area at the start of that c: drive) that you don't see - but is there - to get your machine running. Add to that your BIOS needs to know to boot from the relevant device and right now that's pretty much looking to the c: drive as well.

When you build multibooting systems (as I always do) the primary, active marked partition (what is your c: drive) is very important. Getting it right from the start is very important.

I can only assume that you want the c: drive formatted, or something, in order to reclaim the space for games, or data, or something. In that case, I actually think you will get better results from your PC if you reinstall Windows XP over the top of the Windows 2K Pro on the c: drive (fresh installation, formatted, etc) and then it will be a simple matter of cleaning up the old windows xp install left over.

Start with a clean installation of XP on the c: drive. PCs like the one and only OS to be in a place like that. I suggest that you endeavour to ensure that yours keeps to this model.

The only other thing I can suggest involves a fair bit of potential mucking around. I could make it work for you but I think I'd even have to try it here and write down very precise instructions. It used to be easier to do things like that with earlier versions of windows but your XP install will almost certainly freak about at some point and get upset suddenly thinkings its install partition (i.e X:\winnt) is suddenly another drive letter. It will get confused and unless you have some tools like Drive Image, Partition Magic, access to Windows XP recovery console, to regenerate boot sectors, etc, I think you will have problems.

I'd just have a better think about how to organise your hard drive space, and then reinstall accordingly. Try to make a dedicated partition for data, also one for games (if you play them), etc. Keep your operating system on c: drive.

 

[shle]

After playing with different methods of removing dual boot without success, I bit the bullet and:
-copied everything back to my C: drive.
-disconnected C: so I only had one drive hooked up
-formatted the old D: drive, now C:
-installed XP Pro
-made it the Master
-hooked up the old C: , now D:
-copied over my data from D to C
-removed D: and formatted it to remove the old data

Thanks for the help

Sharon