Erasing XP Dual Boot on Win7 Machine...

W

Watts8041

Member
....and I think I messed it up pretty badly.

Hey guys, as you can see this is my first time posting on this forum. I just discovered this forum today and have found it to be very useful.

OK, so... when I got Win7 a year or so ago, I wanted to dual boot XP b/c I wasn't sure how I would like Win7. It turns out, I like it very much and have had very few compatibility issues, so I've been wanting to get rid of the XP install taking up space on my partitioned HDD. Now that exams are over, I finally have the time. I followed the instructions here:

Uninstalling XP From Dual Boot XP/Vista Installation - The NeoSmart Forums

However, somehow I've fudged things up and now my computer won't boot. I've run 'startup recovery' from the win7 CD multiple (> 4) times and nothing seems to change. Upon booting I get an error "A disk read error occured / Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart." Again, I can run the win7 CD, and I can access the C-prompt in MS-DOS from there and the disk seems to be fine. There's no reason to believe it wouldn't be IMHO.

It's a 250GB hard drive partitioned into halves. I thought win7 was on C:\ but it seems from digging around in MS-DOS that win7 is actually on D:\. Startup repair detects a previous install of win7 on D:\ but can't repair the boot. Any thoughts?

Also, I committed a cardinal sin by not creating a system restore point or a system image before I attempted the XP removal....

Sorry for the long-winded post. If I've left anything out or generally haven't explained myself fully, please let me know.
 
Is it the only HDD on the PC ?
If not, disconnect the others before doing the repair again.

(Don't worry about the C:/D: apparent change. That's just because the booted DVD is an OS in its own right (C:smile: so it has to see another OS as notC:. Disk letters are just virtual labels in the mind (registry) of the running OS)
 
Last edited:
Hi Terry,

Yes, it is the only HDD in the PC.

Thanks for helping me out, I'm not opposed to wiping the whole thing and reinstalling win7, but I hope it doesn't come to that!

-Watts
 
Tuhin said:
Guys..!!! i was tryin installing xp sp3 in xp..!!! got a fatal error whic left me a dual boot menu, ie
Xp professional
Xp professional setup

now i installed win 7, thnx to easy BCD got rid of XP but still it shows dual boot..!!
now
Windows7
Xp professional Setup

how to get ride of this setup frm boot :frowning:
can any1 help me...????
Click to expand...

Tuhin, I have moved one of your other posts to its own thread here : Help With Dual Boot Menu Please - The NeoSmart Forums so please go with that one.
 
Make sure that W7 is set "active" before you try the repair, and did you mean "startup repair" when you said you'd done "startup recovery" several times ?
 
At this stage, how do I determine if W7 is set "active," and how do I change it if it's not?

And yes, i did mean "startup repair," my mistake.

Thanks again.

-Watts
 
Look for a free partition manager online (like gparted or partition magic) that you can burn to a CD and boot to a stand-alone GUI, or you can use your W7 DVD and use Diskpart from the command prompt, as described here
 
Success!!

I used diskpart to set the partition to 'active' and it couldn't have been easier really. After running startup repair a few more times, W7 booted from the HDD without a hitch!

Thanks for all your help!!

-Watts
 
Yes, glad you're OK now, and next time (hopefully never again) try to look for advice a bit more up-to-date.
The thread you were following is five years old and pre-dates EasyBCD 2 and all of its wonderful labour-saving automatic features by some considerable time.
That was back in the dark ages when EasyBCD was little more than a BCDedit GUI, and lots of manual intervention, hours of research and lot of "suck it and see" were necessary to get a simple Vista/XP dual-boot working.
As CG points out, you could have achieved your desired outcome painlessly and quickly using Easy2's ability to switch the boot files around.
Not trying to rub salt in your wounds, but just a salutary post for future readers of this thread trying to benefit from your experience.
 
Back
Top