After format computer boots and asks to choose between 2 OS versions. Why? (1 Viewer)

[Ronald Epstein]

A friend of mine recently had problems with his
computer and asked that I come over and help him
format and reinstall Windows XP.

At the time he was using the HOME version of XP.

After deleting the partitions and formatting his
computer I installed Windows XP PROFESSIONAL on
his computer. The install went beautifully.

Noticed a problem afterwards....

As soon as the computer boots up (before the Windows
XP boot screen appears) a black area comes up and asks
which OS the user wants to boot to. It gives a choice
of XP HOME or XP PROFESSIONAL.

Why is this happening?

Is there anything I can go in and do to make the
computer boot to a default XP PROFESSIONAL?

Thanks in advance

 

[Aaron Gould]

Hey Ron...

Check the "C:boot.ini" file, and take out the line that says "XP Home". It looks something like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home" /fastdetect

As long as you leave the "XP Pro" line untouched, it'll be ok.

Also, here's a bit of info on the whole boot.ini thing (if you're interested of course ):

http://www.microsoft.com/resources/d...c_str_masc.asp

 

[Ronald Epstein]

How do I access that boot.ini file?

Looking at the "C" drive I don't see it sitting there
unless it is a hidden file.

Thanks for this tip.

 

[Aaron Gould]

Oops, yes -- it is a hidden, and write-protected file.

In "Windows Explorer", go into the "Tools" menu, and select "Folder Options". In the "View" tab, uncheck the "Hide protected operating system files".

Now you can see the C:boot.ini file in Windows Explorer. In the "boot.ini" file Properties (right-click on the file, select Properties), uncheck the "Read-only" option.

After you make the changes to boot.ini, make sure you re-enable all the above settings.

 

[Mike Fassler]

yeah its the boot.ini for sure, but that is pretty strange, cause you said you removed the partitions and formatted the drive.

 

[Joseph DeMartino]

Are you sure you got all the partitions? It sounds like you missed one and it had XP Home on it. Either that or you used the Windows installation routine to do the format and partition. I'm pretty sure that if you do this on a machine with an existing Windows installation and choose "install XP in a new directory" rather than "over write existing installation" it wilsave the old version to a bootable partition by default. I think there is an override for this, but you've got to look for it.

Regards,

Joe

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Joseph,

Suppose I didn't delete all the partitions....

What now? Do I have to do a reformat?

Also, the guy said he THOUGHT he had an 80GB
hard drive but after the format and the new install
it now says 40.

Is there possibly 40gb that I missed and is sitting
in an old partitioned space?

If this is the case do I have to go and reformat again?

Yes, I did boot up with Windows XP to do the
partition deletion and formatting.

 

[Patrick_L]

yes to all of your questions, Ron. that's a mighty big waste of hdd space if that's true.

 

[Al.Anderson]

It sounds like you did miss a partition. Using just the Windows partioning tools you could go back and make that space a "drive D:". Or, using a 3rd party tool like Partion Magic, you can really delete that partion and then expand the existing partion to use that space.

However, you don't mention the problem you were trying to solve when you upgraded. If it anything to do with possible corruption, I'd start fresh. In fact, just to clean out the partion I'd start fresh anyway (but I'm obsessive like that).

 

[Patrick_L]

 

[MichaelGH]

Ron,
It sounds to me like you may have forgotten to delete the original partition and created a new partition to install on instead, which means the original is still out there somewhere.

A couple things:

Go to Start->Programs->Control Panel
Click Administrative Tools
Click Computer Management
Click Disk management

You should be able to view all the hard disk and all partitions that are there (Since you mentioned you only see 40 gb out of 80, you'll be able to tell if there's a second partition out there). If so, you can either a) reinstall the OS to delete all partitions and re-install on a single 80gb partition, b) use a program like partition magic to combine the missing partition back into your primary XP pro partition, or c) just format the missing partition into a D: drive which you could then use as a work/data area.

To edit the boot.ini file:

Right click on My Computer and select properties. Click Advanced and then click the Startup and Recovery button. You'll see a section of the popup window that says "To edit the startup file options manually, click Edit"...Click the Edit button. Remove the line that says Windows XP Home, save the file, close the file...next time you reboot you should go right into XP Pro.

Hope that helped a bit.
Michael

 

[Mike Fassler]

yeah you dont have to reformat again, just go to disk management like MichaelGH said and you should be able to see everything there,just right click the partition and format the one you want, dont mess with the new boot partition.

 

[Ronald Epstein]

Guys,

Thank You so much. Great information here
and detailed enough that an idiot like me
can do it.

I'll go ahead and print this out.

 

[Aaron Gould]

I'm late checking back with this thread, but it looks like the other guys filled in the blanks! Happy to help out...