Remove a second OS

[AdamSnow]

Hey everyone... I'm currently running Windows XP as my main OS, but I recently did an install of Windows 2003 Server. During the install, something when wrong and it will not boot... it never even got through the full installation.

Here's my problem. as this is now evey time I boot my machine it wants to go into the install of the OS. I have about 1 second to choose "Windows XP" from the MS Duel Boot list or it tries to go into 2003 and I have to reboot and try again...

How can I remove this from my system without a Format? I want this duel boot thing removed so it just boots into XP again...

Any advice?

 

[minofifa]

there is probably an easier way, but i just had a similar problem and what i did was

1. reformat the partition that your unwanted OS is on
2. reformat the master boot record (sarch for a thread started by me to see how to do this if you don't know how. several people explained it well).

 

[BlueWeasel]

1) Use Disk Management in XP to remove the W2K3 partition
2) Use a Win98/ME boot CD or floppy to boot into a command prompt
3) Type FDISK /MBR (this rewrites the master boot record)

I'm pretty sure the same MBR rewrite can be done using the Recovery Console on the XP CD, but I don't remember the exact command for it.

 

[Navid]

You just need to modify your boot.ini file to only point to one OS (single-boot). You can access the boot.ini file by clicking on "Start" and "Run". Type "msconfig" and hit "OK". Now, go to the "BOOT.INI" tab.
Click on "Check all Boot Paths".

If this does not work, just edit the boot.ini file in your root folder. You may need to change the default view settings of windows explorer to show the system files and their extensions.

You can search on the web to find the default boot.ini file and post back and ask.

Even if you remove the other partition or format it, as long as the boot.ini points to the other partition, you will have problems.