Remove dual boot option at startup on XP computer

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I build my own machines and currently use XP Pro operating system with service pack 3 and all of the udpdates. It contains 2 identical 250Gig hard drives. I installed XP on the one HD and when Win 7 came out, I installed it on the second HD which gives me a dual boot screen at startup. I later built a new computer with Win 7 on it and would like to remove the Win 7 installation from the XP computer but more importantly, I want to get rid of the dual boot menu which is a hassle when I have to reboot and make sure that I select the earlier version of windows (XP) to boot to. I encountered this on another computer with the same setup and when I reformatted the HD with Win 7 on it, it hosed my boot up and I couldn’t get Win XP to boot properly. I have tried to use some of the utilities that helps you to adjust your boot system but none of them seem to work when using 2 separate hard drives. They seem to be designed for partioned single HDs.

I hope I have made my situation clear and any insight you can give me would be very much appreciated.

jofo69

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EasyBCD, its a boot manager utility, use it to write the MBR to the XP partition so the boot manager is not on the Win7 drive anymore, then remove the W7 entry from the boot menu with it (might want to split that action to a separate boot to make sure XP works and W7 does not). Then you can easily format or use the W7 drive for anything else without affecting the function of the XP drive.

Read the FAQ/guide at the EasyBCD site for better explanations than I gave.

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See the links at the bottom of EasyBCD for screenshots and documentation.

Joe

--Joe

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Thank you to Star Lounger and Joe for the very concise answer. I had tried another boot manager program(don’t remember which) and it didn’t seem to find my 2 different operating systems. EasyBCD was straight forward and identified both entries and I was able to remove the Win7 entry, checked off the item to forgo the boot manager and all is running as I wanted.

Jofo69

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Glad you got it resolved. Thanks for posting back.

Joe

--Joe

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