How do i remove a dual boot if....

[darkorbit]

How do i remove a dual boot if the os i want to remove is in my C: drive?
I have xp home on c: and xp pro on local disc J: .........
and if so how do i make J: become C: ??? >.< can any one help :dead:

 

[wlknaack]

How do i remove a dual boot if the os i want to remove is in my C: drive? I have xp home on c: and xp pro on local disc J: .........
and if so how do i make J: become C: ??? >.< can any one help :dead:

First, what do you mean by local disc J? Is J another physical disk, or a partition on another physical disk, or is it a partition on the C: HDD? Please reply.

Second, assuming you installed XP Home first makes C: the primary active partition. When you installed XP Pro, the boot loader of XP Pro took over the dual boot setup and installed that information in the boot sector of the C: partition. Consequently, all boot information for C: and J: is in the boot sector of C:, and if you delete that you will not be able to boot J:.

Replacing C: with J: may be possible, but I need to know the information regarding J: I noted above, plus a description of what else is on C: and J: and which of that do you wish to retain, before I can make specific recommendations.

 

[Nodsu]

If Windows knows it was installed on J:, then making it run from C: is a PITA - you would have to replace all references to J: in the system registry and possibly many configuration files to make the OS and programs run properly. (Gotta love that concept of drive letters)

You can remove the OS on C:, just leave all the boot files intact.

 

[darkorbit]

ok here's the long term story lol

when i did a full system restore my xp home got corupted so i bought xp pro and installed it on here .....but i did something that made a local disk J: which has most of my HD ....YES i am only using one HD >.<

 

[wlknaack]

darkorbit, you are not fully responding to the questions, which may make it more difficult for members to help you.

Here is what is known based on the information you supplied: You have one HDD with two partitions, one C: with WinXP Home, and one J: with WinXP Pro. A WinXP managed dual-boot exists such that relevant boot information is contained in, and controlled by, the boot sector of partition C:. We do not know what else you have on either partition.

As Nodsu stated, there are a "zilllion" pointers to J: in the registry of partition J:, so you cannot just switch J: to C:. Additionally, as I indicated in a prior post, you cannot completely wipe-out the C: partition because you will lose the boot information. Therefore, the options I see that you have are:

1) Delete WinXP Home, without deleting the boot sector. Programs installed on the C: partition will be useless and must be reinstalled on J:. Data files on C:, if you wish to retain them should be copied to folders you set up on J:. You will most likely have to edit the boot.ini file to remove the path to XP home. You will now end up with a partition (C which has nothing in it except the boot information for J:. You will need 3rd party partitioning software if you want to non-destructively expand the J: partition and correspondingly shrink the "empty" C: partition, or

2) Copy all data you wish to retain in J: to folders you set up on C:, then backup all programs and data you wish to retain on C:, repartition the HDD into one NTFS partition, format, clean install WinXP Pro, the HDD will be assigned the drive letter C:, restore programs and data from the old C:, and reinstall the programs you want to retain which you had on J:.

The lesson to be learned here is that it is easy to get into a WinXP managed dual-boot, but a nightmare to get out.

Good luck.