Removing XP?

[jwocky]

I will soon be installing a new primary hard drive and moving my current primary drive to slave duty. Once this has happened, how do I best remove (cleanest way) Windows XP from the slave drive?

 

[Matthias99]

Uh... delete the windows directory (assuming you don't want to reformat)? That's what I always did. I don't think it comes with an uninstaller. 😛

 

[MedicBob]

Format the slave drive once you have your OS loaded on the new drive.

 

[jwocky]

Yeah, don't want to reformat.. want to keep the other stuff on the hd. I guess it's as easy as deleting the windows directory.

 

[piasabird]

If you have some software to copy one drive to the other that might be best. Like copying as an image. Norton has a utility to do that and some drive manufacturers may have similar facilities to do that. You might also be able to backup and restore it to the other drive using windows.

 

[xenos500]

that drive really needs to be reformated, just back up your stuff

 

[JustAnAverageGuy]

Keep the directory there, add it to your boot menu.

That way if you ever mess up your new Windows OS, you can revert back to your old one 🙂

That's what I did. No more risk than necessary.

 

[jwocky]

Why are some people saying that a reformat is definitely necessary?

 

[CQuinn]

Why are some people saying that a reformat is definitely necessary?

Good question, but you did ask what was the (cleanest way) to remove XP.

Deleting the Windows directory from that drive will work, but remnants of the prior XP install
will still be on that drive in the root directory and a few other places.

If you want all traces of the previous install gone, then backing up your important data, formatting,
and then restoring is probably the best way. If all you want is to free up some space, then deleting
the Windows dir should do the trick.

 

[Chunkee]

that is why i make three partitions

c is for system

d is for program installs

and e is for documents and files

i redirect the my documents folder to e drive

so when redoing the c partition, i still have all my files that are important and do not need to reload them

but backing them up is important as well

JC out