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Need To Remove Vista Boot File


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#1
magusbuckley

magusbuckley

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Hello:

I have have four Hard Drives in my computer. The first drive houses my main OS, Windows XP. The next two drives are SATA drives set in a RAID 0 stack. Those drives house my data. The fourth drive is what I was using to run the beta version of Vista. That beta expired in January (or so I think, it quit working around that time). Every time I boot my computer, the main boot file runs and wants to know which operating system to run - Vista or a previous version of Windows. Now that I'm not running Vista, I'd like to remove this screen from my POST Routine. I'm unable to find the startup file for Vista.

Can any of you tell me how to disable this file so my computer boots directly into Windows XP? Also, and on a side note, can any of you confirm the termination date of Windows Vista Beta?

Any and all information will be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Magus
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#2
Tyger

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You probably just need to edit your boot.ini file in the root directory. If you need help doing it just open it with notepad and copy and paste the text into a reply here.
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#3
magusbuckley

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Tyger:

Vista doesn't use the Boot.ini file. This is why I was confused. However, you have taken me one step farther by asking me to paste the contents of the boot.ini file here in this post. Windows Vista, during the install, backed up the boot.ini file by changing it's extension to .bak. I copied boot.bak to my desktop, changed the extension back to .ini, and opened it up for editing. The first two lines had been edited by Vista claiming that boot.ini was used by Windows XP and older operating systems. To modify Vista boot options, we are to use BCDEDIT.exe. I searched for this program and came up with about 7 entries. Only 3 of them are valid files. Of those three, I am unable to get the program to run. In each instance, I get the message that "the file is not a valid Win32 Application".

I have some things to do in town today. I'm going to work harder into getting into that boot file when I get home. I'll let you all know if I come up with anything.

Any other ideas until then?

Thanks,

Magus
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#4
magusbuckley

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Hello Again:

Update on my progress....

I am still unable to run BCDEDIT.exe. My next move was to try deleting all folders on the "E" drive (where Vista was installed). An error appeared stating that the disk was full or write protected. Then, from "My Computer", I tried formatting the "E" drive. That didn't work either. The message states that there is a program using this drive and that I'll have to exit the program and/or close any windows displaying data from this drive. I don't have any open windows and am unsure what program could be using the drive. The only one that came to mind was Windows OneCare. I turned off the Realtime Virus Scanner but that didn't seem to help. As a last resort, I rebooted into Safe Mode but am still unable to format drive "E". I get the same message stating that a program or window is using this drive.

Any ideas on how I can figure out what program is using a drive or how I can for "E" to format?

Thanks,

Magus
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