Best way to un-dual boot???

**JayMan** · January 26th, 2002, 09:33 AM

I currently have dual boot win98se/win2k, basically i wanna get rid of win98se, but i don't wanna format my win2k partition if possible. Could i simply just format the win98se partition and still keep the win2k partition as it is? Or would formating the win98se partition get rid of the boot record?

JayMan

**CMonster** · January 26th, 2002, 11:45 AM

You shouldn't have any problem with formatting the FAT32 partition. My son did the same thing with one of his machines that had Win98/Win2k on one drive and Linux on the other -and he is using the Win2k bootloader.

Formatting does not change the MBR.

**JimG** · January 26th, 2002, 01:05 PM

Where's your Win98 partition? C: or D:? I use to dual boot my system, but by keeping Win98 on the C:, the boot files were there (boot.ini, ntdetect.com, and the always useful ntldr), while my Win2k install was on the D:. So, if I ever formatted the C:, I'd lose the boot info.
If your Win2k install is on C:, and Win98 on D:, then it's no biggie. Just remove the line for Win98 in your boot.ini file.

**CMonster** · January 26th, 2002, 03:50 PM

If you do wind up toasting your 2K boot loader you can repair it using the CD in rescue mode by running "fixboot"

**Brangwen** · January 26th, 2002, 03:58 PM

Interesting ...

When I undualed my dual boot (win2Kpro and Win98se) I formatted my drive. I didn't know of an alternative ...

Good info.

Brangwen

**surreal** · January 26th, 2002, 04:09 PM

There are also several Boot Utilities.

Can you believe how many are there?

**AuraEdge** · January 26th, 2002, 04:17 PM

If you want to get rid of the bootloader screen....
You could go to startup and recovery under system properties-> advanced, and set "time to display operating system" to 0
just make sure the Default OS is set to Win2k and not Win98, or youll need to edit the boot.ini to fix it.
Then you can format C: if you so choose without really affecting things. Never done it myself, but I dont forsee any problems in doing that.

**JayMan** · January 26th, 2002, 08:41 PM

alrighty, i'm gonna trust cmonster on this (so if it kills my boot up then hopefully that fixboot or wotever will work.)

If im not back in 10minutes........just wait longer!

JayMan

**JayMan** · January 26th, 2002, 09:11 PM

Well, i can't boot, i tried that fixboot and still nothing, i keep getting "cannot find ntldr" or woteva. I was gonna try going a fixmbr but then it warned that i would loose partitioning info which i definatly DO NOT wanna do.

If i loose my win2k partition its not that big of a deal, but i'd prefer not to. If i loose my Data partition i'm in big big trouble! Lots of important stuff there which i probably wont be able to replace easily.

U guys got any idea's before i just re-install win2k?

JayMan

**JayMan** · January 26th, 2002, 09:26 PM

/\bump/\

help!!!

JayMan

**Brangwen** · January 26th, 2002, 11:09 PM

JayMan:

Have you a burner (CDRW would be best - direct CD) that you can access? Or a backup drive *external*)? I would be backing up data ... then try to fix your problem. Priorities ...

Good luck.

Remember, you can backup from DOS if need be and if you have a backup device that runs in DOS.

Or stick in another drive, make it a master, boot with the other HDD as a logical slave and transfer that data.

Brangwen

**CMonster** · January 27th, 2002, 12:41 AM

1. don't panic

2. I cannot legally post these images here because of copyright laws -but check them out they will help you

www.dslextreme.com/users/cmonster3/helpme1.jpg

www.dslextreme.com/users/cmonster3/helpme2.jpg

I would like to add for the record:

I currently have dual boot win98se/win2k, basically i wanna get rid of win98se, but i don't wanna format my win2k partition if possible. Could i simply just format the win98se partition and still keep the win2k partition as it is? Or would formating the win98se partition get rid of the boot record?

JayMan

there is no mention of an important "data partition" in the first part of this post. This should have been backed up prior to even thinking about formatting anything -e.g. computer common sense.

In the exact same situation -but without this "data partition" (was that Drive E?) I ran fixboot and fixmbr without any problems, but if you can still get to your data it would be wise to back it up before you proceed any further.

**JayMan** · January 27th, 2002, 03:05 AM

1. i didn't particually feel like burning 40 odd cd's to back up that stuff i didn't wanna loose.

2. i've fixed anyways, just reloaded win2k.

JayMan