Basically: I have 2 version of windows XP installed on the same partion (I think)
The laptop was previously running on windows 2000.
There was less than 1 GB of space left so I backed up the hard drive onto another computer. With all of this sorted out I figured that the XP pro disk that I had would most likely get rid of windows 2000 and install XP at the same time.
Apparently, this didn’t work. So I had windows XP and 2000 running on the same computer (Not what I wanted).
I figured that surely no computer would allow me to have two of the same operating systems on the one computer, so I upraded the win 2000 to XP pro (it was an uprade disk). I rebooted the computer, and to my horror there was two version of XP Pro, both the same version! So naturally I booted it a few more time before deciding that kicking it wouldn’t do any good.
Long question short: How can I completely un-install one of the operating systems?
My suggestion would be to back up what data is on there that you want to keep - an easy way to do this would be to network your laptop with another computer and transfer the data that way.
Once having done this, use the XP disk to format the drive and do a nice clean install of Windows… im not the biggest computer head around though, so yell at me if my advice is flawed in some way
Well, if you have your data backed up, I’d just format the whole thing and install windows on a clean partition. The easiest and cleanest method in the long run.
I, too, vote for the clean install, but if that isn’t practical…
Boot the computer into “recovery mode”… you might have to Google on how to do this, but I think you mash F8 repeatedly while the computer is booting, then select from a menu.
Anyways, recovery mode puts you at a command prompt. This will allow you to do things to the disk that you wouldn’t be able to from the Windows Desktop. Delete all directories that say WINDOWS or WIN or WINwhatever. I think the proper syntax is “deltree WINDOWS”… again some Googling might help you… look for “command line” or “recovery mode commands” or some such.
When Windows installs it first looks for any such WINblahblah directories and incorporates them into its installation. If it sees no such directories, it will do a clean install, whether or not the disk is completely blank. This way you can install Windows “cleanly” but still keep everything on disk.
