Formating a Vista Install

jalu6

jalu6

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This may be a little above the heads of the CAG forums, but I figured I would test the nerdocity of you guys for a minute.

When the Vista Beta 2 came out, I figured I'd give it a try on my new laptop. I had a 100GB HD and split it into 2 partitions. I put XP Pro on the C: and then installed Vista on the D:.

Well, now they are up to RC2 and I've seen enough of Vista until its actual release, so I want to get rid of it. I was going to format the D: and use Partion Magic to merge it back with the C:. However, Vista has its own brand new bootloader which doesn't show in the XP boot.ini and I'm worried that if I format my Vista drive, I won't be able to boot. My C: I use for work and it set up for my domain and I would really rather not have to reformat (plus, World of Warcraft takes like, 3 hours to install).

So does anyone who has used Vista know a way to restore the old XP bootloader so I can just format the drive and not worry about loosing everything?

Thanks
 
There is a utility on the Vista install CD that removes the boot loader. If that fails, there are a couple of utilities that let you edit your MBR.

I don't know the exact name of it, but its on the CD somehwere.
 
You'll still be able to boot up Windows XP from your C drive, you'll just continue getting that prompt to select the OS at startup.

To stop that dual booting though, you can't just format the Vista partition as Vista does some "wonderful" new boot sequence that stays around even after deleting the partition.

I popped in my XP install disc, let that boot, went into the recovery console, and did the "fixboot" command at the prompt. Got rid of the dual-booting.
 
you can pick what os to be the default boot option. in windows xp go to run, and run msconfig. there are options in one of the tabs there to pick a default os to boot, and you can delete other installations of os's if you want.

on the xp install disc too there is a way to format partitions and merge/delete them. you'd have to go into the set up like you were going to install windows and it gets to the section where you can mess with the drives and partitions. after you format the one drive and/ or merge it you can exit the installation process, restart and let xp boot up.

T. Foolery
 
The Windows Xp cd comment works fine. Do the Recovery console if it came to that and at the prompt do bootcfg\rebuild

It will put it back the way it should after you merged the partitions if you ran into any problems.

I don't think it would come to that anyways. The boot.ini file is still one the orignial C partition so it should still load into the boot menu. You can set it to permanently choose windows XP and it won't give you the option to dual boot anymore.

I am running Vista RC 1 / 2. Its looking pretty good.
 
Ok, problem solveed. I formatted and then merged the partitions with Partition Magic 8, then as SteveMcQ said, I booted with an XP disc, got to the recovery console and pulled a fixboot. Now it goes right to XP and I have my single 100GB partition back.

Thanks for the help everyone.
 
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