formatting and winxp

[RangerJoe]

alright......i used to have windows 2000 pro on my computer, and i upgraded to winxp...but....when it booted up, it would give me to option to boot from winxp or from windows 2k. so i tried formatting, but it would get to 100% done and it said this drive cant be formatted or something like that....so i just restarted and it ended up that it erased all the info from my computer, but there is still a trace of an unidentifyable operating system that i can choose to boot up....and it doesnt do anything if i click on that....but if i choose xp it starts up fine...now is there anyway that i can just take that option out of the startup so it wont give me a choice, or am i going to have to completely start over and try reformatting it. what should i do???

[trey_w]

the option menue given to you is a feature in win 2K and Win Xp for dual boot or more

i am not sure if this is the only solution but i wiped out the whole HDD and all partitions

then i reformated and made new partitions

[redduc900]

I've found that if I use PM to format the boot partition, I end up with the option to choose an "Unidentified OS" to boot from...in the boot menu. If I format the partition from within the XP setup program, the only option is to boot the XP OS (with that as the only available option, the boot menu won't be available).

Under "System Properties" | "Advanced" tab | "Startup and Recovery" (Settings button) | "Edit" button...the Boot.ini looks like this when XP is the only available boot option...

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1) | WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1) | WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

...I used the "Pipe" command in the "boot loader" menu above (instead of the "\" slash command, so it would be properly formatted.

When you see "Unidentified OS" as a boot menu option, you'll need to delete the last line in the Boot.ini that starts with...c:\"Unidentified operating system on drive c.", save the file and reboot.;)

[Jon]

Open the root of your C:

There should be a file called BOOT.ini.

Open that file (it will open by default in Notepad), copy the complete contents and paste it in your next thread. I'll tell you what to delete to fix it.

[trey_w]

great idea, i totally forgot about the boot.ini file

i was thinking he was reformatting everything and could not get the menue off

[RangerJoe]

woah, i love you guys