[jmailf]

Ok, I just completed deleting malware through another forum on this site. I was told to come here for advice on removing an OS from my computer.
Here is the situation: around 5 years ago my daughter did something to my computer and I had a friend (IT) fix the computer. I just recently noticed (during removal of malware) I have two operating systems on my computer. I want to remove one but when we tried earlier it caused problems with my current OS, I could log into it but no internet....
Here is what I see when I reboot

Windows XP Professional
Windows XP Professional Setup
System Recovery

XP Pro setup shows it is on the C:\
System Recovery shows it is on the C:\
Windows XP Professional shows it is on a partition \

I currently made the Windows XP Professional my default to boot into.
The moderator said that I may have to backup everything and clean the drive and reinstall everything back onto it (software and updates). Is this true? And is it possible.
I do know my system runs slower ever since my friend fixed the computer and I did notice that I lost about 20% of my hard drive...Since then I have upgraded my RAM I have 756 now, I have added two hard drives(one internal and one external). I have transfered a lot of my files to those. I mainly have only software on the main one. (main 80g, secondary 120g, external 80g).

Please advice.

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All Referenced Software will have a link at the bottom of this post

Ok As with anything BACKUP just in case (I use selfimage so i can restore the computer back to its original state if something goes wrong)

Once this is complete load up administrative tools (under the control panel) and select disk management. Then right click the offending partition and "delete volume" you can then format it accordingly. this SHOULD have no affect on your existing windows instal, but hey that is what backups are for.


Selfimage can be downloaded from here: http://selfimage.excelcia.org/

enjoy

[mikhael]

All Referenced Software will have a link at the bottom of this post

Ok As with anything BACKUP just in case (I use selfimage so i can restore the computer back to its original state if something goes wrong)

Once this is complete load up administrative tools (under the control panel) and select disk management. Then right click the offending partition and "delete volume" you can then format it accordingly. this SHOULD have no affect on your existing windows instal, but hey that is what backups are for.


Selfimage can be downloaded from here: http://selfimage.excelcia.org/

enjoy

[wannabe1]

Hello jmailf....

Right click on My Computer and choose "Properties". Click the "Advanced" tab. In the "Startup and Recovery" section, click The "Settings" button. In the window that opens, click on the "Edit" button. A notepad window will open (boot.ini)...copy the contents of that window and paste it here for us.

Open My Computer and double click on Local Disk C:. How many folders do you see with "Windows" in the name?

Click Start, then Run, type %systemroot% and click "Ok". What folder opens?

With this information, we should be able to remove the unwanted installation without formatting.

wannabe1

[jmailf]

wannabe1
I will post them this evening since I am currently at work....hope you can help, thanks also

[jmailf]

Here is the ini file

[Boot Loader]
Timeout=3
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
c:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Setup"
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons



Here is what I see on the C:\Drive


Click Start, then Run, type %systemroot% and click "Ok".
This is the folder that opens:

[wannabe1]

In the first image, what are the two files following "Windows" and how large are they?

Everything else looks pretty straight forward. Open the boot.ini file and remove the lines of text shown in red below and change the "Timeout" value to 30 (shown in blue). Then click File on the toolbar and choose "Save"....close the boot.ini window and reboot...it should boot right to windows without the prompt.

[Boot Loader]
Timeout=30
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn
c:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Setup"
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons

Once I know what the other two files are, we'll continue.

[jmailf]

quick question....I will post this afternoon once I find out how big the folders are and what they are....but my question is why do I get a popup window when I make changes to the ini file? I don't remember what exactly it says when I click on save but it says something about not have admin permissions....it still makes the changes but I always get that same message when I click on save in the boot.ini file. Just curious since I have admin rights on the computer.

[jmailf]

Ok I completed everything you ask
Deleted two line in boot.ini
made time 30
checked the two folders and they were downloads that were from previous fixes.......I deleted them, no need for them anymore....
I rebooted....now what>
By the way my internet explorer is very slow...not sure why when my connection speed shows it is 100.0 Mbps

[wannabe1]

Dorry for the delay in getting back to you.

There doesn't appear to be another actual operating system installed on your machine. What we removed from the boot.ini file were a reference to an aborted or botched installation and an option to boot to recovery console. As recovery console can be accessed via the XP installation cd, you don't need the option presented to you at startup. We should be done with this part.

You should have gained quite a bit of space by deleting the two downloaded files...they were large ones.

As for Internet Explorer, have you tried another browser (such as FireFox) to see if the problem is with IE or with the connection?

[jmailf]

Sorry I just looked to see if you had answered. No I have not tried another browser. I will try one when I get home this afternoon. Is there one that you recommend? Also I think it may be the browser not the connection, the reason I say this is because on my other two computers (both connect through wireless router) the browser opens quickly....but on the main computer that is not on the wireless router it takes longer for the browser to open. But as I said I will try out another browser when I get home and I will post again the results.

[surfer99]

Hi Jmailf,

the browsers most often recommended here at GTG is : Opera or firefox

Just noticed there is a link to firefox 3 in Wannabes signature, so i would go with that one

Edited by surfer99, 25 July 2008 - 08:04 AM.