Removing Dualboot (2k & 2k)

[PeteFeet]

I looked through the forums and was very surprised that no-one seems to have asked this question before.

Anyway, i have 2k on each of two HDDs. They dualboot atm.

I now want to remove the dual boot so that i have to change the boot disk in the bios in order to boot from the different OSes.

Someone told me to edit the boot.ini and i did this, but when booting from the previously non-boot drive, i get "ntfs.exe" missing. I've tried copying that accross but to no avail.

Can someone please tell me the full procedure for removing a dual boot scenario?

Cheers fellas

<b>Get your stinking claws off me, you damn dirty ape!</b>
<i><font color=blue>formerly elphls</font color=blue></i>

 

[newbie]

I'm not too sure.. but this is what I did to remove dual boot (XP Pro & Win98se):
Start computer using the startup disk, then type:
A:\sys c:

 

[PeteFeet]

Thanks for that, but it won't work with 2k. Wish it did.

Unless there's a win2k specific sys.com type of file. But i don't think there is.

Cheers M$!

<b>Get your stinking claws off me, you damn dirty ape!</b>
<i><font color=blue>formerly elphls</font color=blue></i>

 

[CALV]

to remove the dual boot, and just to boot off your C:\ then changing boot.ini is the way to go, however probs do sometimes occur, try fdisk/mbr on your c:


If they squeeze olives to get olive oil, how do they get baby oil?

 

[Smilin]

Guys please be careful throwing around casual advice.

Both fdisk /mbr and sys c: are fixes for booting to a window 9x partition. These two commands will cripple his operating system if he uses them on a drive that can boot.

petefeet - put your previous non-boot drive into a booting position, then actually boot from the w2k cdrom instead. Do a "repair" on your windows install but MANUALLY tell it just to repair the boot files. This might not fix you fully though. Problem is your registry is all chock full of entires from when this now bootable drive was in a different location.

There's a buttload of articles on microsoft technet about dual booting. Your specific situation (2k & 2k) may not apply but you should be able to apply w2k & winnt dual boot scenarios (just ignore crap about differences in ntfs versions in this case)

 

[PeteFeet]

Your specific situation (2k & 2k) may not apply

Cheers man, that sounds like a more sensible tactic. Cheers you others , luckily i knew these were bad ideas.

I'll take a look, but to date i haven't found a win2k and winnt dual boot remove procedure. I may not need this tho'. I only want to be able to remove (in bios) one of the drives so i can install winxp over the top of the other in standalone.

If you happen across one i'd be grateful m8.

I'll let you know how it turns out.

<b>Get your stinking claws off me, you damn dirty ape!</b>
<i><font color=blue>formerly elphls</font color=blue></i>

 

[Smilin]

here's a few technet articles.. You should be able to pull yourself through with these:

Q184299
Q221061
Q136547
Q102873
Q153762

The online version of technet is much suck. The search engine on that thing is horrible. I used the cd version to find these articles but they'll still exist online. Should be simple to find given the q numbers.

 

[PeteFeet]

Cheers for that. I'll take a look.

My problem is compounded by the fact that my copy of win2k is not a bootable CD, so i can't try what you suggest.

I've been thinking about how to make a 2k bootable CD which i may be able to do with the makeboot.exe thingy. However <i>(just to make things even more annoyingly difficult)</i>, my floppy drive is broken.

Off to look at the articles now

cheers

<b>Get your stinking claws off me, you damn dirty ape!</b>
<i><font color=blue>formerly elphls</font color=blue></i>

 

[PeteFeet]

Well, i'm at the end of my tether now.

Unfortunately those articles didn't help (except one mentioned the recovery console idea you pitched).

I can't get my floppy drive working and without that i'm pretty much boogered! My copy of 2k is not bootable and i can't make a bootable CD without a working floppy drive (AFAIK).

If anyone has any other ideas before i lose all sanity i'd be very grateful.

Cheers

<b>Get your stinking claws off me, you damn dirty ape!</b>
<i><font color=blue>formerly elphls</font color=blue></i><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by petefeet on 01/19/02 05:16 PM.</EM></FONT></P>