How do delete a windows installation?

RangerJoe · Aug 18, 2004

I have two hard drives, and one of them has windows installed on it, but it is already fragmented, so sometimes when I reset my cmos, it will attempt to boot to the bad installation, but freezes. So how can I just remove the installation as a whole.

L337 M33P · Aug 18, 2004

www.bootdisk.com

Make a floppy bootdisk

Then when it next boots, make absolutely sure that the partition you want to erase is X

then just format x:

Excelsior · Aug 18, 2004

Go to your control panel, then administrative tools, then double click 'Computer management.'

Go to the line ont eh lef that says 'Disk Management,' then select the partition that the windows install resides on, right click, and either 'Delete Logical Drive' or 'Format.'

Note, this will get rid of ALL information on the partition, so back up any valuable data on the partition the old windows install resides on.

-Excelsior

RangerJoe · Aug 18, 2004

i dont want to format the drive..lol.

i know how to do that. i just want to remove the windows installation

Excelsior · Aug 18, 2004

RangerJoe said:
i dont want to format the drive..lol.

i know how to do that. i just want to remove the windows installation

That's not formatting the drive, that's formatting the partition

there's a difference.

I'd go for right clicking the windows directory on the old installation, SHIFT, + DELETE maybe?

-Excelsior

Ebola · Aug 18, 2004

RangerJoe said:
i dont want to format the drive..lol.

i know how to do that. i just want to remove the windows installation

Large magnets should do the trick. :burn:

I would just go for a fdisk and then a fdisk /mbr and call it good. If your really concerned about removing weird porn or secret government documents but want to keep the drive then you can do a low level format and there are several programs out there that can do that.

sirreal45 · Aug 18, 2004

RangerJoe said:
I have two hard drives, and one of them has windows installed on it, but it is already fragmented, so sometimes when I reset my cmos, it will attempt to boot to the bad installation, but freezes. So how can I just remove the installation as a whole.

Does this mean you have windows on both drives? When you set the boot order in CMOS it should load up from the first drive automatically, everytime, doesnt sound right to me.

You can prevent the bad drive from trying to boot by deleting the files, ntldr and NTDETECT.COM. They are hidden system files, so you'll need to make your system show them under folder options. Only do that on the drive you do NOT want to boot. This doesnt necessarily uninstall windows, but will stop you from having the boot problems.

Audioaficionado · Aug 18, 2004

Your primary drive is usually the one the system tries to boot to. Just make sure the drive that has the good OS is the first like Primary master on EIDE channel 1. To just get rid of the bad windows, you can just delete or rename the windows or winnt folder. Then make sure the boot.ini file only referances the one you want to boot to.

rayik · Aug 19, 2004

Audioaficionado said:
To just get rid of the bad windows, you can just delete or rename the windows or winnt folder. Then make sure the boot.ini file only referances the one you want to boot to.

Exactly, I've done just what Audioaficionado says a number of times on dual boot systems. Just remove the OS you don't want in boot.ini and you are all set.

How do delete a windows installation?

RangerJoe

All that is Man!

L337 M33P

Member

Excelsior

Member

RangerJoe

All that is Man!

Excelsior

Member

Ebola

Senior Toilet Scrubber

sirreal45

Registered

Audioaficionado

Sparkomatic Moderator

rayik

Member

Similar threads