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I was wondering if aside from formatting my HD, there were any ways of removing a previously installed Windows XP from my system?

You mean pasting a new version of XP over top or removing the operating system while leaving your other files intact?

Grandtheftcow wrote:You mean pasting a new version of XP over top or removing the operating system while leaving your other files intact?

Well, I had a major error last week that borked my system, and I couldn't run the auto-recover for some reason, so I ended up having to install it seperately. So I have 2 XP installations now, which is fine for now, but will fuck things up down the line. So I want to know if there is a way to remove the other windows installation without formatting my HD since it's a gigantic pain in the fucking ass with all the files I'll have to back up.

I don't know if there is a way or not, but I know I wouldn't trust it if there were. Multiple identical OS installs is powerful evil black magic and nothing good can come of it.

Flagg wrote:Well, I had a major error last week that borked my system, and I couldn't run the auto-recover for some reason, so I ended up having to install it seperately. So I have 2 XP installations now, which is fine for now, but will fuck things up down the line. So I want to know if there is a way to remove the other windows installation without formatting my HD since it's a gigantic pain in the fucking ass with all the files I'll have to back up.

Use Windows repair. It'll rewrite over the operating system while leaving your other files intact.

Edit: I can pull out the disk and write down the early steps if you'd like.

I remember using Windows repair and that took.. hrs to a day. Gave up and just formatted the partition with the OS.

Grandtheftcow wrote:

Flagg wrote:Well, I had a major error last week that borked my system, and I couldn't run the auto-recover for some reason, so I ended up having to install it seperately. So I have 2 XP installations now, which is fine for now, but will fuck things up down the line. So I want to know if there is a way to remove the other windows installation without formatting my HD since it's a gigantic pain in the fucking ass with all the files I'll have to back up.

Use Windows repair. It'll rewrite over the operating system while leaving your other files intact.

Edit: I can pull out the disk and write down the early steps if you'd like.

Yeah, I tried that and it wouldn't work at all. I was just hoping there was a workaround someone knew about that didn't involve formatting my HD.

Oh well, if not I'll just reformat once I recover from my surgery.

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I remember using Windows repair and that took.. hrs to a day. Gave up and just formatted the partition with the OS.

It's basically a new installation without reformatting so you'd have to expect it to take as much time as a new install would.

I don't see how it could take any longer than that.

Edit:

Flagg wrote:Yeah, I tried that and it wouldn't work at all. I was just hoping there was a workaround someone knew about that didn't involve formatting my HD.

Oh well, if not I'll just reformat once I recover from my surgery.

Ouch I guess all I can suggest now is to buy some DVDRW disks and start burning.

Grandtheftcow wrote:

Fingolfin_Noldor wrote:I remember using Windows repair and that took.. hrs to a day. Gave up and just formatted the partition with the OS.

It's basically a new installation without reformatting so you'd have to expect it to take as much time as a new install would.

I don't see how it could take any longer than that.

Edit:

Flagg wrote:Yeah, I tried that and it wouldn't work at all. I was just hoping there was a workaround someone knew about that didn't involve formatting my HD.

Oh well, if not I'll just reformat once I recover from my surgery.

Ouch I guess all I can suggest now is to buy some DVDRW disks and start burning.

It will be OK for a few months, so I'll just get a portable HD. I'm not spending all day burning DVDs.

Thanks for all the help, guys.

Just go in with a boot disk, delete the WINDOWS directory, and then boot your WIndows install disk and select the original volume. BE sure to tell it not to format.

Uraniun235 wrote:Just go in with a boot disk, delete the WINDOWS directory, and then boot your WIndows install disk and select the original volume. BE sure to tell it not to format.

Thanks, I'll try that.

Oh, if you haven't got any critical data left in there, you might blow out the Documents and Settings folder too. Not critical but should make things a bit neater.

I would suggest you download Mandriva One, which is a Live CD distro of Linux (that will run off of a CD ROM) that has an excellent tool for managing partitions. Using it, you should be able to detele the NTFS partition that your broken XP installation is on, and then resize the other partition to fill in the blank space. Back up your data first though, please; while I've never heard of any problems resulting from Mandriva resizing an existing partition, you still never know when something might go awry. Also, there is a slight chance that you might inadvertantly delete the wrong partition, so that's also why backing up your files is also very important. If you do screw up, you can use Mandriva One to format the entire volume, and then reinstall.

I've personally used Mandriva One in this capacity (when I inadvertantly b0rked a Linux install on bare metal).

I don't know if there is a way or not, but I know I wouldn't trust it if there were. Multiple identical OS installs is powerful evil black magic and nothing good can come of it.

Don't be a retard. As long as you remember to back up your data, nothing is "powerful evil black magic," and if done properly (with virtualization, rather than partitioning), multiple identical OS installs on the same system can be extremely useful. I would not personally install the same OS in two seperate partitions, but there are a number of easy ways for Flagg to extricate himself from this scenario.

Finally, Flagg, if you do need to do a complete reinstall, you might consider (if you have a relatively fast, modern system and don't plan on doing any gaming) using Linux as your base OS, and running Windows XP in VMWare (or vice versa).

RThurmont wrote:I would suggest you download Mandriva One, which is a Live CD distro of Linux (that will run off of a CD ROM) that has an excellent tool for managing partitions. Using it, you should be able to detele the NTFS partition that your broken XP installation is on, and then resize the other partition to fill in the blank space. Back up your data first though, please; while I've never heard of any problems resulting from Mandriva resizing an existing partition, you still never know when something might go awry. Also, there is a slight chance that you might inadvertantly delete the wrong partition, so that's also why backing up your files is also very important. If you do screw up, you can use Mandriva One to format the entire volume, and then reinstall.

I've personally used Mandriva One in this capacity (when I inadvertantly b0rked a Linux install on bare metal).

I don't know if there is a way or not, but I know I wouldn't trust it if there were. Multiple identical OS installs is powerful evil black magic and nothing good can come of it.

Don't be a retard. As long as you remember to back up your data, nothing is "powerful evil black magic," and if done properly (with virtualization, rather than partitioning), multiple identical OS installs on the same system can be extremely useful. I would not personally install the same OS in two seperate partitions, but there are a number of easy ways for Flagg to extricate himself from this scenario.

Finally, Flagg, if you do need to do a complete reinstall, you might consider (if you have a relatively fast, modern system and don't plan on doing any gaming) using Linux as your base OS, and running Windows XP in VMWare (or vice versa).

I have a PC that Mormon Jesus would envy (yes, I'm bragging like a douchebag) and I use it for gaming, so Linux just isn't going to do it for me. I appreciate the advice though.

He wasn't suggesting you install Linux, he was just suggesting you try using Mandriva's partition tool.

RThurmont wrote:

I don't know if there is a way or not, but I know I wouldn't trust it if there were. Multiple identical OS installs is powerful evil black magic and nothing good can come of it.

Don't be a retard. As long as you remember to back up your data, nothing is "powerful evil black magic," and if done properly (with virtualization, rather than partitioning), multiple identical OS installs on the same system can be extremely useful. I would not personally install the same OS in two seperate partitions, but there are a number of easy ways for Flagg to extricate himself from this scenario.

Thanks, I love you too. I sure am glad that your sense of humor is challenged to the point that suggesting that Windows is black magic gets a snide comment from you instead of a chuckle.

For the record, in case you ever read another post of mine, I also don't actually think that there's magic smoke inside semiconductors that makes them work.

Executor32 wrote:He wasn't suggesting you install Linux, he was just suggesting you try using Mandriva's partition tool.

No he also suggested that I use Linux as a base OS. Which is a fine suggestion, it's just that my PC is built for gaming.

Right, I'm blind. I didn't read that last sentence in his post.