Changing from dual boot to single boot

R

redline15

Member
I have 2 HDDs and the 1st is installed with WinXP and the 2nd is installed with Win 7. XP is installed first then Win 7. I use EasyBCD to manage the dual boot.

I would like to reinstall XP due to the bloat after running it for several years. Will this mess up the dual boot? If so, how should I go about reinstalling XP and then be able to dual boot XP and Win 7? Do I need to revert to single boot with Win 7 then install XP over it?

Thanks.
 
Hello redline, welcome to NST

After you've re-installed XP you'll be booting straight into XP. You'll than need to use Windows 7 disc and startup repair 2-3 times to fix everything. If it doesnt add XP and boots W7 straight away get EasyBCD 2.0 and add an entry for XP; let it autoconfigure.
 
Hi Justine, thanks for the quick reply.

Just to confirm my understanding:

1) I just proceed to reinstall XP like a new install by booting from the XP CD.
2) After XP is reinstalled, (I don't think I will see the option to choose which OS to boot), I do the "startup repair" 3 times to fix the Win 7 dual boot.

I'm using EasyBCD 1.7.2. Should I upgrade to ver 2.0?

BTW, if I mess up the XP install and need to boot up to Win 7, will doing the "startup repair" allow me to bootup Win 7? I guess I need to make it Active in the BIOS right?
 
If you disconnect the W7 disk before you reinstall XP, then reconnect it as first in the BIOS boot sequence, your dual-boot should all be working.
XP will only revert the boot if it can see W7 as the controlling system.
If you've already let XP rewrite the MBR/PBR on the W7 HDD, you'll need to boot W7 DVD and do the repair a few times to reinstate the W7 bootmgr/BCD.
Since you have 2 HDDs, both partitions will probably already be active. (Only one active partition per disk)
 
Solved: How to reinstall Win XP without affecting Win 7

Just posting this in case someone intends to do the same.

I have 2 HDDs. The first HDD is installed with XP and the second HDD is running Win 7 which was installed later. After running XP for a couple of years, the startup is slow and I wanted to reinstall XP on the first HDD.

Following the advise provided, I did the following:

1) Disconnect Win 7 HDD from the PC
2) Boot with XP and reinstall XP as normal
3) Reconnect the Win 7 HDD to the PC
4) Use the Win 7 CD to boot. Select "Repair you Computer" and it will attempt to repair the Computer. After it completes the fix, it should find the Win 7 operating system.
5) It will prompt you to restart and you should restart and boot using Win 7 CD again.
6) Select "Repair you Computer" and it will attempt to repair the Computer a 2nd time.
7) After the repair, it will prompt you to restart and you should restart and boot using Win 7 CD again.
8) Select "Repair you Computer" and it will attempt to repair the Computer a 3rd time.
9) After this repair, remove the Win 7 CD and from the BIO, select to boot from the Win 7 HDD.
10) After Win 7 starts, run EasyBCD v2.0. Add an entry for Win XP to the boot.
11) Reboot and you should see the option to choose between XP and Win 7.

Hope this helps :smile:
 
It would have worked without running Startup Repair (and all you did by "repairing" it was replaced the XP boot code on its own HDD with the Win 7 version, so it will no longer be able to boot by itself, if you need it to), but anyway, glad you got it working. :smile:

Jake
 
Well, the strange thing was after installing XP and reconnected the Win 7 HDD, upon boot up, I didn't get any prompt to choose the OS.

Did I miss something? Or maybe I should have use the BIOS to boot Win 7 HDD instead and then use EasyBCD to fix it?
 
redline15 said:
Well, the strange thing was after installing XP and reconnected the Win 7 HDD, upon boot up, I didn't get any prompt to choose the OS.

Did I miss something? Or maybe I should have use the BIOS to boot Win 7 HDD instead and then use EasyBCD to fix it?
Click to expand...
That is because your W7 HDD wasn't first in the boot sequence in the BIOS until you moved it up after running Startup Repair 3 times. :wink: If it had been first to start off with, you would have came to the menu since the W7 bootloader would now be in charge of the boot, and you would not have had to run Startup Repair at all. But, oh well, what's done is done. :smile:
 
Read my first reply again Redline.
"If you disconnect the W7 disk before you reinstall XP, then reconnect it as first in the BIOS boot sequence, your dual-boot should all be working."
 
Terry60 said:
Read my first reply again Redline.
"If you disconnect the W7 disk before you reinstall XP, then reconnect it as first in the BIOS boot sequence, your dual-boot should all be working."
Click to expand...

hahaha.... I thought that meant to connect the W7 disk after the first bootup of XP. My mistake :tongueout:

Addendum:

Correction to my earlier post as pointed out by Terry and Jake.

To reinstall Win XP with a dual-boot of Win7, the steps should be as follows:

1) Disconnect Win 7 HDD from the PC
2) Boot with XP and reinstall XP as normal
3) Reconnect the Win 7 HDD to the PC
4) In the BIOS, change the Win 7 HDD as the first boot HDD.
5) This should provide the option to boot either from Win 7 or XP.

Cheers and thanks for the help and clarification.

I learn something everyday :smile:
 
Last edited:
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