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WinXP Professional Install

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by grosskey

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I recently installed Windows XP Professional, upgrading from WinME. The first time around I was hit with an option that confused me, and the end result was that I had suddenly had a dual-boot system when I wanted XP to replace ME. So I wiped the drive and started over. Since the version of XP I have will only install as an upgrade, I had to reinstall ME first and then reinstall XP. Ugly, huh?

Well, this time around I tried a different path to avoid the dual-boot situation, but it looks like that's what I have anyway. This time, it looks like I have an XP Professional/XP Professional dual boot.

After a lengthy introduction, my question is this: Is there any way to remove the secondary boot sector without having to wipe the drive again? The only problem I think it poses at this point is that it's eating valuable drive space, and I want to get rid of it.

5 replies

by baddragon

Hi
Try this, use the makeboot utility on the XP disk to make boot diskettes(6), wipe the pc clean, install the XP upgrade, when it searches for a previous version, it will tell you you it can't find it, then put your Win/me in the cd-rom drive andtell it to look there, and once that step is finished, replace the cd with the XP one, I have done several upgrades in this manner, from win3.1 to w95, w95 to w98, from w98 to nt, and from nt to 2000. Its a cool way of doing it and un-documented andworks just fine.

by thechas

First, you do not need to install Me in order to install the upgrade version of XP.

If your system supports boot from CD, all you need to do is boot from the CD, and the XP install will begin. At some point, you will be asked for your OS CD to prove that you qualify for the upgrade, and your set.

If your system does not support booting from CD, you can download the XP Pro boot floppy creation program, and create the 6 floppies required for installation startup.

As to your present situation;
1. Edit the boot.ini file in the root folder of the boot drive.
You need to delete the second install of XP.
If both are installed in the same folder, you should now be done.
2. If the second version is in an alternate folder, once you verify that you boot properly, delete the folder with the second version of XP.

For more information on the boot.ini file and commands, search Microsoft's site on the terms boot.ini and bootcfg

Chas

by grosskey

Thank you. This is very helpful. I didn't want to walk through the whole process again. I actually tried booting from the CD, but it didn't seem to work.

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