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"Select operating system" ... But I only have one!?

James Bond

James Bond

Diamond Member
I have a Dell Inspiron 5150.

I felt like playing around one day and installed some themes, including a boot screen alt.

From then on, whenever booting it allowed me to "choose an OS". The options were:

Windows XP Home
Windows XP Home (Bootable)

I would usually choose bootable, just because I figured that had the bootscreen, although they both displayed it.

After getting sick of Dell's shi*** support programs you can't disable and a few BSODs, I reformatted.

I installed Win XP Home again. However, to my suprise, it now shows THREE OS's.

Windows XP Home
Windows XP Home (Bootable)
Windows XP Home

I know this isn't the end of the world... But how do I make those other two go away when all I have is one SUPER clean copy of Windows installed??
 
Edit the boot.ini and remove the extra entries.

It's a hidden OS file, and an easy way to access it is to:
1) Open system properties (Right click My Computer > properties)
2) Advanced tab
3) Startup and Recovery (click settings)
4) Click Edit
 
Did you actually reformat, or did you just install a copy of XP on top of what was already there? If you had totally reformatted, then you shouldn't be getting that boot menu when you boot up.

To totally wipe everything out, when you first boot off the WinXP CD to start the installation, and it gets to the point where it asks you where you want to install XP, have it delete the existing partition (arrow keys to select the partition, D to delete it, Enter to confirm that you want to delete it, and then L to confirm again that you want to delete it). Should then bring you back to the list of partitions - use C to create a partition, then press Enter to have it install to that newly created partition.

If you delete the partition that's there, it should take care of the boot menu that you're getting now.

JW
 
Originally posted by: JW310
Did you actually reformat, or did you just install a copy of XP on top of what was already there?
Click to expand...

According to his post none of the above apply.

I felt like playing around one day and installed some themes, including a boot screen alt.

 
Originally posted by: John
Originally posted by: JW310
Did you actually reformat, or did you just install a copy of XP on top of what was already there?
Click to expand...

According to his post none of the above apply.

I felt like playing around one day and installed some themes, including a boot screen alt.
Click to expand...

Sounds like he did reformat from this in the OP:

After getting sick of Dell's shi*** support programs you can't disable and a few BSODs, I reformatted.

*shrugs*
 
Heh, obviously I need to pay closer attention. Sorry about that.... 😱

BTW I've done clean installs and zapped all of the partitions on the drive, yet I've still seen multiple entries in the boot.ini. This seems to happen on Dell, Compaq, GW2K, etc.

I have no idea how they get there either. 😛
 
hidden partitions keep the boot ini information, best way around this without tamptering with boot files, is to remove the the tick from the 'system startup' option, which is found on the advance tab of system icon located in the control panal
 
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