petris101

ok,now i have 2 partitions and windows xp and 7,7 will be needed to delete in the future (may 2010),how can i uninstall it and keep only my xp without formatting the disk?also now it loads through the 7 boot loader, (if the bootloader thing is needed on 1-os boot)how to change it back to xp without repairing from the xp disc?

pat mcgroin

Usually people ask this after the screw it up.
I cant say for sure but I would be interested to know.
Im almost positive....

If you go to a command prompt and navigate to the root of the W7 partition you should be able to type
del *.* <enter>

This should (could) delete everything except the system critical files.
Im thinking the bcd store,recycle bin, and something else Im missing.

Im not saying to do this...... but if you could and post the results I and possibly others would like to see how it goes.

By all means please wait until others post for other responses, but if the opportunity presents itself it would be interesting to know.

grimx133

The last time went from a dual to a single boot with XP, I booted off the disc and use the recovery console to write a new boot sector. A repair install would also work, but, either way would require an XP disk. It may also be possible to write a new boot.INI file and put that on the XP partition. However, I am not sure if that'll work.

TheOutcaste

You need to boot to the XP Recovery Console and run FIXMBR. This restores an XP MBR which will look for NTLDR instead of the Vista/Win7 bootloader.

james137

The esay way:

Put your windows xp CD in (or install xp recovery console) boot CD --> run recovery console
and type bootcfg /rebuild. This will find only Windows xp OS and below if i remember.

restart computer
boot off windows xp
format hardrive that contains the windows 7

TheOutcaste

Actually grimx133 had it right, don't know why I was thinking the MBR would need to be re-written. It's the boot sector that determines whether the system looks for io.sys, ntldr, or bootmgr. Vista and Win7 do not use the boot.ini file, so nothing you do to it will have an effect.

You just need to make sure you write the new boot sector to the correct partition (drive letter). When booting to the Recovery Console with the XP CD, it will list both the XP and Win7 Windows folders, but keep in mind that the drive letters may be different than when booted to either system. Though it won't hurt to write an XP boot sector to both partitions.

If you want, you can delete bootmgr and bootsec.bak from the root of the XP drive, and delete the Boot folder. Though you'll have to take ownership of bootmgr and the Boot folder, and set permissions for your account to be able to delete them
Then delete the boot.ini and rename boot.bak to boot.ini, unless you've modified the boot.ini file since installing Win7. In that case, you can delete boot.bak and edit boot.ini to remove the 4 warning lines added by Win7. Doesn't hurt to leave them though.

I haven't tested on systems where Win7 has installed its 100 MB System Reserved partition. Usually won't see that unless Win7 is installed first. If that partition is present, and on the same drive as XP, removing the Win7 boot loader will be a bit more involved.

james137

yeah that sounds better