2 windows instalations?

Vengeance · Jan 8, 2004, 08:45 AM

I know I've seen this posted before.

But I just got done reformating my drive and installing windows, And now when I reboot it shows that I have 2 windows XP home installs and it asks me which one I want to run!

How do I get rid of the "Other" one that shouldnt be there, so I can just reboot normally?

brc64 · Jan 8, 2004, 10:22 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vengeance
I know I've seen this posted before. But I just got done reformating my drive and installing windows, And now when I reboot it shows that I have 2 windows XP home installs and it asks me which one I want to run!
How do I get rid of the "Other" one that shouldnt be there, so I can just reboot normally?

Right-click on My Computer, select Properties. Go to the Advanced tab and click the Settings button under Startup and Recovery. Click Edit, and All you have to do is delete the incorrect or redundant entry and save. If you're not sure what to delete, post the contents of that file here and I (or somebody else) can probably tell you. Be careful, though, because if you screw this up, you could make it very difficult for yourself to get back into Windows.

- Me

Vengeance · Jan 8, 2004, 11:02 AM

Thx brc64 I deleted the 2nd line, then windows wouldnt start when I hit enter on the 1st option while rebooting so I used the 2nd option, there both the same. So I went back to where you sent me, and everything was back the same way it was. Heres what it says.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

What do I delete?

brc64 · Jan 8, 2004, 11:24 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vengeance
Thx brc64 I deleted the 2nd line, then windows wouldnt start when I hit enter on the 1st option while rebooting so I used the 2nd option, there both the same. So I went back to where you sent me, and everything was back the same way it was. Heres what it says.

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

What do I delete?

You lost me there.. when you start your computer, and don't press any buttons at all (wait 30 seconds), does it boot into Windows correctly?

- Me

Vengeance · Jan 8, 2004, 11:30 AM

well it did

Now it wont.

But if I hit the down arrow and use the 2nd option, It boots fine.

Help me......

PangingJr · Jan 8, 2004, 11:35 AM

it may boot fine this time and may not boot anymore, or error with some file missing along the line, until you have a proper boot.ini file.

How many HDDs? How many partitions on each HDD? Where is your windows installation? Do you have floppy drive on the machine?

Vengeance · Jan 8, 2004, 11:43 AM

Quote:

Originally posted by panging
it may boot fine this time and may not boot anymore, or error with some file missing along the line, until you have a proper boot.ini file.

How many HDDs? How many partitions on each HDD? Where is your windows installation? Do you have floppy drive on the machine?

one HDD
one partition
windows is on my c/drive
yes I have a floppy

Is there help for me?

hate noobs

(namely me)

PangingJr · Jan 8, 2004, 11:50 AM

Okay man you're not noob...

pls follow this link and make the XP custom boot disk (only one disk needed)
problem with windows

after that we can play around with the boot.ini. so let me know when you got that boot disk.

brc64 · Jan 8, 2004, 11:53 AM

Okay, that's what I thought, but I wanted to be sure. Make your boot.ini file look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

Edit: The S shouldn't be on its own line.. I don't know why it's being displayed like that in my post.

- Me

PangingJr · Jan 8, 2004, 12:36 PM

the point is to have that boot disk in hand in the case you cannot boot in to XP at alll.

anyway, i believed this is how your present boot.ini looks,

edit this line -->from..
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOW S

to.. default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
Then remove one line under the [operating systems]

edit the file so that it'll look like this..

PangingJr · Jan 8, 2004, 12:48 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by brc64

Edit: The S shouldn't be on its own line.. I don't know why it's being displayed like that in my post.

- Me

i have the same prob before when trying to post registry entries, or some other scripts, not sure, maybe because of the forum software that caused the line wrap and blank spaces.

Vengeance · Jan 8, 2004, 04:05 PM

Thanks guys

It's working fine now

I just wonder what I did to cause this in the first place?

I've reformated many times before but this is the first time this has happened.

PangingJr · Jan 8, 2004, 04:13 PM

Did you actually delete the current XP partition (installed partition) at last setup??

Vengeance · Jan 8, 2004, 04:15 PM

Yes I deleted it all, and let the windows disk format the drive.

PangingJr · Jan 8, 2004, 04:44 PM

boot.ini with choice of OSes after a clean/newly install... never seen that before..

only if you like to do.. or you dont have to..

Run the below script and it'll tell you the result of

- Boot Directoty and your Boot drive configuration (what partition?)

copy/paste in notepad and save it with anyname.vbs, D-click on the file to run it.

Code:

On Error Resume Next
strComputer = "."
Set objWMIService = GetObject("winmgmts:\\" & strComputer & "\root\cimv2")
Set colItems = objWMIService.ExecQuery("Select * from Win32_BootConfiguration",,48)
For Each objItem in colItems
    Wscript.Echo "BootDirectory: " & objItem.BootDirectory
    Wscript.Echo "Caption: " & objItem.Caption
Next

PangingJr · Jan 8, 2004, 05:27 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by Vengeance
I just wonder what I did to cause this in the first place?
I've reformated many times before but this is the first time this has happened.

Okay, eventho your system config is a single partition single boot, but XP use partition number which's determined by the MBR. i'd say its something that went wrong in the MBR and its reason why your boot.ini shows OSes on partition 1 and 2. but it should not be any more prob since you still get XP to boot. and i hope the prob is ended.

Vengeance · Jan 8, 2004, 08:54 PM

me too, thanks for your help

You too brc64

God you just gotta love this place some times!

PangingJr · Jan 9, 2004, 05:06 AM

You're welcome. agian i convince you man, make the boot disk i mentioned, its truely time saving and help me from doing this dirty work in the Recovery Console on many XP machines.