Kilroy
Premium,MVM
join:2002-11-21
Ann Arbor, MI
 ·WOW Internet and C..
| reply to Annmarie
Re: [Vista] New machine but recycled Vista
To totally wipe a drive you want Darik's Boot and Nuke. I have had issues with it and SATA drives, but it has always worked fine for me with IDE drives. Boot and Nuke will remove everything from the drive.
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When will the people realize that with DRM they aren't purchasing anything? |
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Annmarie
Premium,Mod
join:2000-11-11
Ronkonkoma, NY
clubs: | OK. I have two separate physical drives - one with Vista and one with XP.
If I run that app on the Vista drive then the computer will simply boot to the other drive and other OS? with the Vista drive being clean as a whistle? |
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Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
 ·North State Commun..
| said by Annmarie  :OK. I have two separate physical drives - one with Vista and one with XP. If I run that app on the Vista drive then the computer will simply boot to the other drive and other OS? with the Vista drive being clean as a whistle? How do you boot now? Does your system boot to the Vista drive and you are presented with a menu? Do you have to change the system boot drive in the BIOS to boot XP or Vista? Did you answer this already and I missed it?  |
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Annmarie
Premium,Mod
join:2000-11-11
Ronkonkoma, NY
clubs:
·Optimum Online
Host:
Electronics
1 edit | The system boots to a black screen ( I know it has some official name) and I am asked where do I want to boot to - Vista or earlier version of Windows.
I have chosen Vista for about a year now. No use for XP anymore.
Vista is on one physical drive and XP is on another physical drive just to clarify.
I think this is what was recommended to me a while back VistaBootPro »www.vistabootpro.org/ |
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Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| said by Annmarie :The system boots to a black screen ( I know it has some official name) and I am asked where do I want to boot to - Vista or earlier version of Windows. I have chosen Vista for about a year now. No use for XP anymore. Vista is on one physical drive and XP is on another physical drive just to clarify. That sounds like the Vista bootloader is installed. If you wipe the Vista drive and it's the drive that holds the bootloader, you won't be able to boot to either OS. Do you have any idea if Vista is on the first physical drive or the second? Normally the bootloader will be installed to the first physical drive that is installed.
Can you open the disk manager (in XP or Vista) by right-clicking on Computer and choosing Manage, go to Disk Management and post a screenshot here? That will help us determine exactly how the drives are set up and shouldn't expose any private information. |
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Annmarie
Premium,Mod
join:2000-11-11
Ronkonkoma, NY
clubs:
·Optimum Online
Host:
Electronics
| Boot is listed on the Vista Ultimate drive after I followed your steps.
That program VistaBootPro has a feature to change the boot order. |
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Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
1 edit | said by Annmarie :Boot is listed on the Vista Ultimate drive after I followed your steps. That program VistaBootPro has a feature to change the boot order. As is typical for Microsoft, the boot partition and the system partition are interchanged. The "system" partition actually holds the boot sector, ntldr and the files required to start the Windows boot process, which is done from the boot partition. The "boot" partition actually holds the Windows system files and is where your \Windows directory lives. Makes perfect sense no? 
So, I would recommend you perform a full backup of your system, preferably with a disk imaging program, and the try the VistaBootPro, or just wipe the Vista partition. Another good sign is that your Vista partition is showing up as D: and your XP is showing up as C:. You were booted into Vista when you took that screen shot right?
(EDIT)
Here's a little more explanation of the Boot/System mess: »en.wikipedia.org/wiki/System_par···artition |
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Annmarie
Premium,Mod
join:2000-11-11
Ronkonkoma, NY
clubs:
·Optimum Online
Host:
Electronics
| I was booted into Vista - yes.
XP is on a separate drive which I have labeled C. It is a small drive.
Vista is on another much larger drive which I have partitioned for various types of files and the partition that holds Vista is D.
I simply want to run XP on that machine. Nothing else. All my important files have been backed up to an external HD.
I want to pull that large drive that hold Vista and just run XP on C.
The Vista drive can be wiped and used in another machine down the road.
My concern is once I do wipe the Vista drive with the computer boot to the XP C drive w/o any interference from me? |
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Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| said by Annmarie :My concern is once I do wipe the Vista drive with the computer boot to the XP C drive w/o any interference from me? Based on the information I've seen, yes and no. You will still be presented with the boot menu and you'll have to select XP, but when you do so it should boot successfully. If you want to get rid of that, the best way to do this would be to boot off the XP disc, enter the recovery console, and type "fixboot" and then "fixmbr." That should clear out the Vista boot manager.
If you don't have an XP disc, do you have a Vista disc? You could always insert your Vista disc and type the following to restore the NT 5.2 (Vista is NT6) boot code:
Drive:\boot\bootsect.exe /NT52 ALL
Replace Drive: with your CD-ROM drive letter. I've never tried that, but it's my understanding it restores the previous MBR that should work with XP and so forth.
I know there are tools that do exactly what you need to do without all the muss and fuss of booting to recovery consoles and such, but unfortunately I've never used them. |
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Annmarie
Premium,Mod
join:2000-11-11
Ronkonkoma, NY
clubs: | OK. I think I understand all of it now. Thanks for the help all. Might be updating this thread in the next few days if I run into a glitch. |
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Matt
Take me down to the paradise city
Premium
join:2003-07-20
Jamestown, NC
·North State Commun..
| said by Annmarie :OK. I think I understand all of it now. Thanks for the help all. Might be updating this thread in the next few days if I run into a glitch. Good luck and Happy 4th! |
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