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Triple booting, reverting back to single OS


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#1
Adebisi

Adebisi

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Currently I am triple booting.

C: Vista
D: XP
Linux Partition

Using the GRUB loader to manage it.

Would like to remove the Vista and Linux partitions, expand the XP partition to fill the drive, and restore its boot functionality.

Simple as backing up my data, using acronis disk manager and then running XP Boot disk, repair, with fixboot? Or is there going to be more to it?

Thanks.
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#2
Adrenalin

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Yeah you could do that.

Or you could back up everything, boot into XP, right click on my computer > manage > disk management > format the drives that you installed Vista and Linux on.

I know that Partition Magic can merge the partitions again, that's what I use. However I have heard that there are a few better ones to use at the moment which I haven't tried.
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#3
Ztruker

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If you have a multi-boot system where XP is not on the C: drive, then you format C:, XP will no longer boot.

When you formatted the C: drive you deleted the 3 files XP placed there that it needs to boot.

ntldr, ntdetect.com, boot.ini

The first two are on the XP CD in the I386 directory. There may also be a copy on the D: drive where XP is installed. Hopefully boot.ini is on D: as well. If not you can try booting the XP Recovery Console then running the bootcfg /rebuild command which should create a new boot.ini in the C: root.

If that doesn't work then you will have to cobble one up from an existing XP system.

As for using Acronis, as long as you leave XP on the D: drive you will be okay. If you do anything so that it becomes the C: drive, it will no longer run and may not even boot. There are too many locations in the XP registry that tie XP to the drive it was installed on, D: in your case.

The best way to do what you want, is to save your data, then reinstall XP from CD, deleting all partitions and creating a new partition that spans the entire disk, format it and install XP there. restore your data after SP2 and all updates are applied.
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