removing unwanted windows edition

hi all

quick question

i recently purchased a used notebook that had windows XP home edition installed. i installed windows XP pro and made sure that the new installation was set up to completely erase all HD data. on restart, however, i still get the choice of running pro or home. how can i get rid of it without having to reinstall everything?

george

 

Well, first backup all your data/photos/etc.

Then stick in the OS of your choice (that you want to install) and reboot the machine into your optical drive. At the Windows installation menu, you should have the option of erasing the windows installation you don't want. You can always just wipe everything out and reinstall fresh (I prefer doing that).

 

Obviously, something isn't right in that HP Home shouldn't be an option. But two easy ways to get rid of the option menu:


1) At a command prompt type:

bootcfg /delete /ID#

Where # is either 1 or 2 depending on which option at boot is XP Home


or

2) Edit the boot.ini file and delete the line manually.

 

hi

thanks for getting back to me on this. i've been lagging with this computer and never really used again so i forgot all about this but now i need it again so i will be doing something to get rid of the home XP....


anyhow, jadedraverla, if i do your method, that would seem to fix the boot sequence but not actually get rid of the Home Edition system files. how do i get rid of those (if indeed they exist)?

georgeb

 

George B - Edit your boot.ini located on your C:\ - I have done a lot of reloads and a lot of times the boot.ini does not get deleted on quick reformat and/or if you do not delete and recreate the partition -so the likelyness of their being another set of windows on your drive without another partition is impossible without another partition - if there is another partition it will be shown in Disk management -
You will have to veiw hidden files and folders to see your boot.ini - So open My computer>c:\ (if you have another local disk and NO slave HD then that is your 2nd partition that you need to wipe data off unless you created it - you will need something partition magic to merge the two back together, OR boot to xp cd, blow away both partitions and setup a new one from scratch - if there is no other local disk in 'My Computer' besides C: then dont worry)
Then click on Tools (uptop)>folder options>veiw - and bubble 'Show Hidden files and folders' and uncheck the two underneath it - hit apply/ok - then back on the C: drive you will see a boot.ini

It should say this to properly boot into xp without getting the choice you speak of -
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

Delete any other lines underneath that - Save, Close (replace file) and reboot.
Problem should be solved.
*and Jades way will work - it *should* be 2

 

I actually have the same problem as georgeb, however I cannot find boot.ini. I checked in C:\ and I even did a search throughout the entire harddrive. In both Windows Explore and Search I have the option enabled for viewing (and searching for) hidden and system files. Yet nothing shows up. Can anyone help me out?