Help! Want to safely remove Vista from 2nd drive...

nick.simpson19

good luck anyway hope i helped you

frogman_2

Thanks, Nick. I'll let you know how it turns out...

Cat695

Log into vista and create a partition as vista has its own partition tool.....move the files then reboot back into xp then you can format the drive with vista on......the problem you will have after removing vista is you will still (probably) have the MBR master boot record which will show up whenever you start XP (ie it will say select which operating system you want to start) even though you have removed Vista because of the MBR

if you have this problem then come back on here and i will point you in the right direction of how to remove the MBR

TimothyEBaldwin

frogman wrote: »

So, I have read that I can just delete the Windows/Program Files/Users folders if I can figure out how to set the permissions. But I don't know if this is the best solution and I'm looking for the safest, simplest way of totally removing Vista.

Yes that will do the job, you may need to take ownership of the folders and give yourself permission to delete them. There may also be hidden files at the top level of the drive.

If you aren't using a third party boot manager, Vista will have upgraded the XP version of NTLDR on the IDE drive, just leave it there. You can delete Vista from the boot menu.

The only part of Windows which is not stored in a file are the bootsectors which are copied to every disk formated by Windows.

TimothyEBaldwin

Cat695 wrote: »

Log into vista and create a partition as vista has its own partition tool.....move the files then reboot back into xp then you can format the drive with vista on......the problem you will have after removing vista is you will still (probably) have the MBR master boot record which will show up whenever you start XP (ie it will say select which operating system you want to start) even though you have removed Vista because of the MBR

if you have this problem then come back on here and i will point you in the right direction of how to remove the MBR

In a standard Windows installation the MBR does not provide a boot menu, it just loads the partition bootsector from the first partition marked as bootable. The boot menu is provided by NTLDR. If either of these programs is remove no installation of Windows will boot.

The boot menu is removed by editing the configuration of NTLDR by editing the file "boot.cfg".

Cat695

TimothyEBaldwin wrote: »

In a standard Windows installation the MBR does not provide a boot menu, it just loads the partition bootsector from the first partition marked as bootable. The boot menu is provided by NTLDR. If either of these programs is remove no installation of Windows will boot.

The boot menu is removed by editing the configuration of NTLDR by editing the file "boot.cfg".

why leave any signs of Vista when you can quite easily remove any trace which is what i was getting at

i was pointing out a problem that MAY arise when he just deletes the vista part (especially if he is dual booting)

[Deleted User]

Can you not burn whatever data you want to preserve to a cd/dvd?

Better safe than sorry, especially with Partition Tragic.

frogman_2

Thanks for all the help...I'm going to try the Cat/TEB route and I'll let you know how it turns out.

anewhope, I will burn all my data onto CD/DVD as well doing a backup onto an external HDD but for now this should do the trick.

Thanks all!

TimothyEBaldwin

Cat695 wrote: »

why leave any signs of Vista when you can quite easily remove any trace which is what i was getting at

i was pointing out a problem that MAY arise when he just deletes the vista part (especially if he is dual booting)

But you were attributing the problem to the wrong program! And you were suggesting deleting it despite the fact that it (or a replacement) is needed to load any version of Windows.


I was wrong about the boot menu being provided by NTLDR, in Vista it is provided by the Windows Boot Manager, which has the filename "bootmgr".

Conor_3

The problem is that Vista uses NTFS rev 6 and XP NTFS rev 5.2. It's easy to resolve by simply booting off the Vista DVD, going to Repair and then selecting "Command Prompt". At the command prompt type:

bootsect /ntfs52 ALL

and it'll revert back to the XP system which will still be there even though Vistas bootloader was installed after.