How do I Recover from an Undesired Dual-Boot?

[Toasty_Squirrel]

I'm going to try dual-booting XPx32 and Windows 7x64. XP is my current OS. Let's say I try out the dual boot for a while, I don't like it, so I want to nuke the W7x64 installation and return to an XP only environment. What's the best way to go about that? I've searched around Google but haven't turned up anything useful or relevant. So that's why I've come here

Any help would be awesome, thanks!

 

[Jolly-Swagman]

Have you also looked on the Windows Seven Forum too
http://www.sevenforums.com/

I have dual boot on separate drive and if you want to get rid of Win7 then just amatter of eiather remove drive or Reformat the one where Win 7 resides

 

[Toasty_Squirrel]

Have you also looked on the Windows Seven Forum too
http://www.sevenforums.com/

I have dual boot on separate drive and if you want to get rid of Win7 then just amatter of eiather remove drive or Reformat the one where Win 7 resides

So if I pop in the DVD and run the install of W7, it won't pollute the existing XP installation at all (provided I install it on a separate partition/drive)? Damn, that makes it sound really easy.

 

[johnz]

So if I pop in the DVD and run the install of W7, it won't pollute the existing XP installation at all (provided I install it on a separate partition/drive)? Damn, that makes it sound really easy.

For easiest recovery, it's best to install it on a different physical drive with the current drive unplugged. You'll have to pick the boot device in BIOS, but if you aren't switching back and forth a lot, it's pretty easy. Doing a normal dual boot is easier for day to day use, but a little more difficult to revert to single boot if you chose to. It's not terribly more difficult, but it could involve a tiny bit of command line work, or using a program to edit your boot menu.

 

[Toasty_Squirrel]

For easiest recovery, it's best to install it on a different physical drive with the current drive unplugged. You'll have to pick the boot device in BIOS, but if you aren't switching back and forth a lot, it's pretty easy. Doing a normal dual boot is easier for day to day use, but a little more difficult to revert to single boot if you chose to. It's not terribly more difficult, but it could involve a tiny bit of command line work, or using a program to edit your boot menu.

Right now I'm just going to be testing out Win7, so I'll probably bounce back and forth between XP and 7 throughout any given day. Do you have any suggestion on what would be a good route for me to go for this *and* have a decent chance of switching back to just XP. I'm not afraid of editing stuff if need be.... so long as it will work

 

[johnz]

Right now I'm just going to be testing out Win7, so I'll probably bounce back and forth between XP and 7 throughout any given day. Do you have any suggestion on what would be a good route for me to go for this *and* have a decent chance of switching back to just XP. I'm not afraid of editing stuff if need be.... so long as it will work

Well, there's positives and negatives about each method...

Option 1- using 2 drives

Unplug your current XP drive, and install Win7.

Positives...
Easy recovery, boot to the O/S you want to keep, and format the other drive.

You don't have to do anything special at bootup if you want to stay in the last O/S used.

Negatives...
You have to go into BIOS to change the first boot device if you want to switch O/Ss

Option 2- using 2 drives leaving XP plugged in, or partitioning 1 drive

Positives...

You get a boot selection screen at startup, and you can pick which O/S you want. Faster than going into BIOS each time

Negatives...

You have to pick an O/S each time you startup, or wait for timeout and the default choice gets picked.

More difficult recovery. To keep Win7 you have to use bcedit to remove the XP choice, then format the XP partition to get the space back for data. To keep XP you need to format the Win7 partitions, then perform a fixmbr to get the XP bootloader back.

 

[Toasty_Squirrel]

Well, there's positives and negatives about each method...

Option 1- using 2 drives

Unplug your current XP drive, and install Win7.

Positives...
Easy recovery, boot to the O/S you want to keep, and format the other drive.

You don't have to do anything special at bootup if you want to stay in the last O/S used.

Negatives...
You have to go into BIOS to change the first boot device if you want to switch O/Ss

Option 2- using 2 drives leaving XP plugged in, or partitioning 1 drive

Positives...

You get a boot selection screen at startup, and you can pick which O/S you want. Faster than going into BIOS each time

Negatives...

You have to pick an O/S each time you startup, or wait for timeout and the default choice gets picked.

More difficult recovery. To keep Win7 you have to use bcedit to remove the XP choice, then format the XP partition to get the space back for data. To keep XP you need to format the Win7 partitions, then perform a fixmbr to get the XP bootloader back.

Thanks JohnZ. Sounds like option 2 is the way to go because my XP partition and my data partition are on the same SATA drive, so I can't leave that drive unplugged unless I feel like cutting off access to all my files. I'll look into BCEDIT if need but and I'm at least partially familiar with FIXMBR, enough to know it isn't rocket science and it can be accessed from XP's recovery console off the install cd.

Thanks a mil!

 

[hokiealumnus]

You won't have to leave the drive unplugged. Only for the purposes of installing Win7. Once it's installed, plug it back in. To switch to either OS, set that OS's HDD as the first boot device in BIOS. I do it this way so I don't have to fool with bcedit/fixmbr.

 

[johnz]

You won't have to leave the drive unplugged. Only for the purposes of installing Win7. Once it's installed, plug it back in.

Exactly. I guess I wasn't completely clear. You unplug the drive during install so Windows doesn't see any other system on board. After it's installed you plug the old drive in, and you're on your way. The biggest downside is going into BIOS to change boot order.

I've had XP installed with Vista since Vista's release, and the only time I boot into XP is to use my scanner once every few months. They don't have 64bit drivers for this model. The point is, you're probably gonna spend 90%+ of your time in 1 O/S, so going into BIOS to change the boot order won't be that terrible on the occasions you have to do that.

 

[UnseenMenace]

The windows installation disk itself can recover the master boot record, boot to a recory terminal in the CD and type fixmbr

fixmbr repairs the master boot record of the boot disk. The fixmbr command is only available when you are using the Recovery Console

fixmbr [device_name]

Parameter

device_name

The device (drive) on which you want to write a new master boot record. The name can be obtained from the output of the map command. An example of a device name is:

\Device\HardDisk0.

Example

The following example writes a new master boot record to the device specified:

fixmbr \Device\HardDisk0

Note
•

If you do not specify a device_name, a new master boot record will be written to the boot device, which is the drive on which your primary system is loaded.
•

If an invalid or nonstandard partition table signature is detected, you will be prompted whether you want to continue. If you are not having problems accessing your drives, you should not continue. Writing a new master boot record to your system partition could damage your partition tables and cause your partitions to become inaccessible.