UNINSTALL DUAL BOOT PARTITION

[IPW]

Hey folks,

I think I have been misled and got myself into a bit of a problem.

I was happily running XP. My kids tell me I am a so 'uncool' on such an old system that I am convinced I need to give Windows 7 a try. I partition my Hard Drive and put Windows 7 on one partition. As a result, on start up I am given the choice of booting into Windows 7 or the older system (XP).

All works OK except that I really do not like Windows 7, hate Windows Live and want to revert to XP only.

I thought the simple way would be to use the Disk Management System on XP and simply reformat the Windows 7 partition. Not so it would seem. I have tried a few times and I get the same message 'value is open or in use' - thus I cannot reformat.

I would welcome some guidance on how to reformat that partition and to return to the efficient simplicity of XP alone.

Thank you.

IPW

 

[treefrog07]

Download the free version of EasyBCD at the bottom of the page; you will have to provide a name and email address. Also read its documentation to understand what it does and how it works.

Then install it, so you can edit the bootloader to delete the windows 7 boot option from your bootloader and restore your system boot directly into XP. You should then be able to format the HDD with the windows 7 installation.

 

[IPW]

Thank you. I will try that.

 

[boyans]

When you installed Windows 7 the XP partition (which was active) received Windows 7 boot environment.

In other words Windows XP partition has now "foreign" boot files.
To get rid of:

1. Download and install Visual BCD from http://boyans.net
2. It comes with "Dual-boot Repair" tool. Run it.
3. Click on "Repair Boot Sectors". Select Drive "SYS" and "XP/older". Confirm.
4. Reboot.

That's all.

 

[alphaproject]

Take into consideraton that WinXP won't use up the goodies from new systems though, that's why I use XP and 7.

DX11 goodness is for Win7 and I have XP for making music.

You really should get used to it because XP is getting further and further away from support. I'm glad it's not dead yet...and I'll use it for a long time as well...but not for games anymore.

Plus...the max memory on WinXP 32-bit is 2.66 gigs of ram. I have 8 gigs installed and that's all it sees.