Full formatt and delete but still OS on drive?

[Jooooles]

Any help please lads I have only 1 harddrive in my tower It had windows home edition on I used a original xp pro disk to full format and delete all the partitions so the harddrive was clean with only the main 120 gb space avalible but when I installed the new XP pro and rebooted the xp home is still showing hence when I reboot I have the option of the 2 xp home and xp pro how do I fully remove the home addition I thought deleting the partitions and doing a full formatt would have solved the problem

any idea how to go about this as i dont want the hassle of selecting xp pro everytime I turn the computer on

 

[karym6]

do you mean that during boot up you are presented with an option to load Win XP Pro & Win XP Home?

 

[Jooooles]

do you mean that during boot up you are presented with an option to load Win XP Pro & Win XP Home?

yes thats whats its doing how come when i formatted all partitions it didnt wipe ?:

 

[Spectre]

Format the MBR with fdisk?

'fdisk /mbr' at the prompt using '98 boot media.

Or change the timeout to '0' in System in CP.

 

[karym6]

but that would remove the ability to boot XP Pro?

Femalelizard - does my computer show more hdd's than you previously had?

 

[Jooooles]

Format the MBR with fdisk?

'fdisk /mbr' at the prompt using '98 boot media.

Or change the timeout to '0' in System in CP.

spectre do you mean format the mother B memory are use a boot disk to delete it etc im not clever with commands and stuff can you give a little more detail please and ill go do some reading cheers


formatt the mbr how ?
whats fdisk is that a command i can use in the RUN option

 

[Spectre]

but that would remove the ability to boot XP Pro?

Femalelizard - does my computer show more hdd's than you previously had?

If I remenber right XP (Pro at least) rebuilds one if it isn't there.

 

[karym6]

If I remenber right XP (Pro at least) rebuilds one if it isn't there.

true.

femalelizard, fdisk wont work like that from the commandline, you will need a bootdisk from somewhere like bootdisk.com

The win98gold edition one should do the trick.

If you can answer the question on how many hdd's you see in my computer, it may speed up the solution.

 

[Jooooles]

I have only 1 harddrive in my tower and in computer thats the only one showing Drive C

I need to remove the old home edition with out spoiling my new xp as ive spent 2 days sorting my software out

 

[toeknee00]

Hi,

Left click on "Start".

Left click on "Run".

Type in msconfig and click "ok".

Left click on Boot.ini.

Left click on "Check All Boot Paths".

it will let you know which ones are not valid.

Once you click ok to remove it, click on ok and reboot the machine.

Hope this helps.

Tony

 

[Jooooles]

Hi,

Left click on "Start".

Left click on "Run".

Type in msconfig and click "ok".

Left click on Boot.ini.

Left click on "Check All Boot Paths".

it will let you know which ones are not valid.

Once you click ok to remove it, click on ok and reboot the machine.

Hope this helps.


Tony

Thanks alot m8 just rebooted and no options xp home is gone thanks alot thanks guys I fcuking love the help you get on this site

 

[MH]

It sounds to me the format did not complete, or was not done. And you have just reinstalled windows over the top of the existing version.

Editing the boot.ini file has only hidden a problem not fixed it

Have you got two windows folders in C?

 

[Jooooles]

It sounds to me the format did not complete, or was not done. And you have just reinstalled windows over the top of the existing version.

Editing the boot.ini file has only hidden a problem not fixed it

Have you got two windows folders in C?

No maryhinge only the usual folders of one system when I done the above promts it actually said xp home was not active are present click to remove so its gone thats all i care about ive clicked properties on the drive and went through the options and stats and the drive looks clean apart from the ex pro so im happy out of site out of mind thats what i say

 

[Spectre]

My apologies for the short replies before, I was typing one-handed on a laptop .

I've seen this before, usually after installing onto a machine that has had an OEM Windows installation on. I don't know why but I assume those installations are different somehow, some have a few partitions which is maybe the cause. I have installed XP many times on different machines so I'm confident that it is not something I have done wrong during install that causes it.

The last time I seen it happen was my friend's machine that was definitely a factory install. I was in a hurry so I just zeroed the time-out .

The issue does boil down to the drive not being completely wiped though. I don't think it will be a problem for you though as the main part of the disk should remain untouched.

I used to use the Windows 98SE boot disk (if you have a floppy drive) but you can make a Windows 98SE boot CD from the floppy image if you only have a CD drive. The boot disk is on the internet but if you can't find it I have it and will post here tomorrow.

Using the Win98SE boot media when asked select any option (CD etc.) I think LOL. When at a prompt type 'fdisk /mbr' without the quotes and you will be prompted to do it.

 

[karym6]

for all your boot disk needs: http://www.bootdisk.com/

 

[Jooooles]

My apologies for the short replies before, I was typing one-handed on a laptop .

I've seen this before, usually after installing onto a machine that has had an OEM Windows installation on. I don't know why but I assume those installations are different somehow, some have a few partitions which is maybe the cause. I have installed XP many times on different machines so I'm confident that it is not something I have done wrong during install that causes it.

The last time I seen it happen was my friend's machine that was definitely a factory install. I was in a hurry so I just zeroed the time-out .

The issue does boil down to the drive not being completely wiped though. I don't think it will be a problem for you though as the main part of the disk should remain untouched.

I used to use the Windows 98SE boot disk (if you have a floppy drive) but you can make a Windows 98SE boot CD from the floppy image if you only have a CD drive. The boot disk is on the internet but if you can't find it I have it and will post here tomorrow.

Using the Win98SE boot media when asked select any option (CD etc.) I think LOL. When at a prompt type 'fdisk /mbr' without the quotes and you will be prompted to do it.

your replys put me in the right direction m8 no probs its the first time ive had this problem so thanks anyway i still clicked your scales and said thanks any help is appreciated your threads have helped me loads in the past anyway reading is a good tool anyway if i can keep my mouth shut lol thanks spectre

 

[oneman]

OEM are different because they sometimes contain a hidden partition to do a system restore from. However when you boot from XP CD these partitions should be detected and you can delete them.