I'm removing C:\ again

[DremNeonBlack 0]

I'm wondering if anyone have a good solution to my problem. I want to get rid of my dualboot. This is the setup:

 

15Gb C:\ winME (crap, I want it out. Only kept it for games anyway)

15Gb D:\ winXP

15-25Gb E:\ F:\ G:\ H:\ just stuff

 

If I delete C:\ obviously I won't be able to boot anything, but isnt there some simple solution to change the bootrecord or something? Just putting all bootfiles like boot.ini/ntldr/ntdetect etc on the D:\ drive isn't enough. In win2000 I could make a repair disk and fix it, but I haven't yet found the same setup for a repairdisk as in win2000. The ideal thing would be a little DOS-program that searched all the disks and fixed it automatically.

 

It's early in the morning here, I'm not quite myself yet so please excuse me if there are typos or anything in here

 

thanks

[donald 0]

Do you have two hard drives? if so just switch the Master and Slave positions.

 

If you have one drive and its in partitions then Use Partition Magic to modify the partitions, then in XP open up the boot.ini file via the My Computer Right click properties option and edit it so only XP is listed.

 

Hope this helps

[DremNeonBlack 0]

Both OS's are on the same physical disk.

[donald 0]

well in that case use something like partition magic to delete the c: partition and then add the free space to the d: partition and change its name to c: then edit the boot.ini file.

 

Thats just a rough idea on what to do, I dont (yet) have enough experience with Partition Magic to help much further but I am sure someone here does

[AndyFair 0]

If you boot off the WinXP disk and choose "Repair" rather than install, then go to the recovery console, there are commands available which enable you to repair the boot disk (I can't remember the exact commands but they're something like fixboot and fixmbr)

 

It's not as simple as combining the C: & D: partitions into one, because this will be called C: by default, and since WinXP was installed onto D:, it will expect everything to be on D:, and so it will fall over and die (I hope that makes more sense than it looks... )

 

Of course, by far the easiest approach would be to reinstall XP onto the C: drive!

 

Hope this helps,

AndyF

[donald 0]

Doh!

 

I forgot that bit.

 

fixboot and fixmbr are the two commands, as AndyFair thought

 

Thanks AndyFair for reminding me about that.

[Derf 0]

:EDIT: Nevermind I'm an idiot... I missread some of your post... :/EDIT:

 

Wouldn't it be easier (and less of a head ache) to edit you boot.ini and take the Win Me section out? Leaving you able to delete anything you wanted (but not format), and not mess up your drive letters etc... Just a suggestion....

[Manos 0]

Or you could simply format the C: and use it for storage/later OS and everything will be as noral? right? I have XP on D: after a similar thing... (Whistler f-upped my system).

 

Or, since you prolly have been thinkin' of clearing out the old anyways... Do a complete format of both C and D Smack'em together (dont use more than 6Gb tops for running any MS based OS (I'm using 4GB for XP) partition the drive into a 4-6GB boot partition and use the remainder to have D: for fun and games and storage, and and...

[BenChase 0]

Quote:

Or, since you prolly have been thinkin' of clearing out the old anyways... Do a complete format of both C and D Smack'em together (dont use more than 6Gb tops for running any MS based OS (I'm using 4GB for XP) partition the drive into a 4-6GB boot partition and use the remainder to have D: for fun and games and storage, and and...

I'm curious as to why you would say not to use more than a 6gb partition for running a MS OS. Most everyone I work with uses 10+ GB partitions for running everything from 98, to 2000 advanced server, to XP. If you're talking about using a smaller partition to keep defrag times short and such, then this would make sense in that aspect. However, if you're talking about security, it's far better to have your important data on another physical drive, assuming you can afford it. If there is a technical concern by using more than 6GB for a boot partition, please let me know, I'd love to hear about it.

- Ben Chase, MCSE

[DremNeonBlack 0]

The XP recovery console thing sounds very interesting. I would love to try that if someone would help me with the right commands? Reinstalling is a very much unwanted option for me, since I have so much stuff set up in XP right now. It would take me days to install/reconfigure everything to the current state.

[DremNeonBlack 0]

Let me just clarify the setup:

 

Disk0:

6Gb

F:\ (active)

 

Disk1:

60Gb

C:\15Gb (system)

D:\15Gb (boot)

E:\30Gb

 

Disk2:

30Gb

G:\

 

Disk3:

13Gb

H:\

[Manos 0]

Hej Ben!

 

No, as far as I know there isn't any real consearns to why I'm using 4GB. It's oly the fact that I want as little as possible to be on the same partition as my OS. I usually do a whipe every 2-3 months because I experiment alot so I don't want all too many things lost in that process. Thus I keep small programs in the "program files" directory on the system partition and bigger stuff like Photoshop (wich you should not have on the same partition/drive as the OS anyways since that slows down the processes) and 3DS Max and such on another part. Or better yet another drive.

 

But I'm likewise curious of why you use 10GB what is your purpouse? Have I missed a great issue? Am I Maybe too scarce in devoting space to my OS? (The HDs are really cheap hese days, so maybe I should give XP some more room?)

 

PS. Followed some advice given by others here and made a new partition (that I later hid using tweak XP) for the page file. I think this is a really good solution and it doesn't ake the system part. so fragented. DS

[Vampyr 0]

Just use norton ghost Personal Edition and do a "Partition to Partition" copy.

[DremNeonBlack 0]

Quote:

Just use norton ghost Personal Edition and do a "Partition to Partition" copy.

Unfortunately I dont have Norton Ghost. Is there a shareware version available? If I use it, does it also fix the MBR and bootmenu?