Windows XP Installed Twice - How to get rid of faulty one?

wordsearch

I recently had computer problems which this forum was really useful in helping with! However I couldn't solve the problem completely however was able to get reinstall Windows XP.

Unfortunatley, somewhere along the line it didn't work and I now have two versions of XP on the same computer.

When the computer starts loading it is literally like

Windows XP Home Edition
Windows XP Home Edition

The first one works and is fine. The second one is the old buggy virus one and I want to get rid of it as it has tonnes of files etc on it that are just clogging up space. So, uh, how do I get rid of it please

gaming_guy

well, you can delete the 2nd entry from the bootloader or set it to a 1 sec timeout (probably better & easier).

click start > run > type msconfig & press enter > click the boot.ini tab and set the timeout to 1 > apply > ok. reboot when it asks you. there will be a message on the next start up saying something like you have used the system config utility, just tick the checkbox and press ok. just make sure that the top one is selected as the default

as for deleting the other partition (the infected xp), you can just use disk management to format the partition deleting all the files on that partition

wordsearch

Yeah but I want to get rid of it completely as it's taking up up so much space by sitting there being unused! There's over 5000 song files on there haha

I'm not sure how to delete it. I've looked at disk management but I don't really get what to do. I know that the faulty one loads up as partition 2 and the one I want to keep loads up as partition 4 by the way.

ms_fan

Two main locations of the files:



You'll have all the old profiles in C:\Documents and Settings. The news ones should start <NAME>.<NAME OF WINDOWS DIRECTORY>. So if your called Bob, and your working version of Windows was installed to C:\Fred your profile folder should be called BOB.FRED, and your old one simply BOB. So you can safely delete the BOB folder and any other user with simply their name in the folder name providing you have copied all your old content from their old profile folders.

Other than that its safe to delete the Windows folder that stores the old version which you can find in your MSCONFIG file. Presuming its a default install this will be C:\WINDOWS. Everything concerning this install, except the boot settings (which are controlled by boot.ini) are stored in this folder.

Hope it helps,