Dell Partions Into One Install XP Problem (Asks dual boot?)

[killerbarney]

ok, I have this really funky problm. I have a dell right now and just formatted my computer. on formatting, i noticed there were diferent partitions and decided to just delete the partitions into one big partition. i did so and installed XP professional.

now,f or some reason, everytime i boot it, it asks me if i want to load up XP pro or XP home. I did NOT dual boot and yet it keeps asking me as if i did. can someoen explain to me what exactly those small parititons had in them and whether or nto they affected the system setup? I am nearly positive this is the reason as I did not do anything different as i would on any othe rformat.

[Force Flow]

Ususally an 8MB partition holds boot record info. Any other size...it could really be almost anything.

[glc]

Reinstall XP again, and this time remove all partitions with XP Setup - and install on the unallocated space that results. Reformatting doesn't remove the boot loader, you have to nuke the partitions.

[killerbarney]

Originally Posted by Force Flow Ususally an 8MB partition holds boot record info. Any other size...it could really be almost anything.

that is exactly what I am thinking. What is this boot record used for and how can I get it back? I think that by deleting the partition and using it as one, i eliminated the boot record so then it doesn't know what operating system to run off of. i really don't know how dells work, so this is confusing me.

Originally Posted by glc Reinstall XP again, and this time remove all partitions with XP Setup - and install on the unallocated space that results. Reformatting doesn't remove the boot loader, you have to nuke the partitions.

that's exactly wat i did on the first time to get me to this. can u explain nuke the partitions? because if that's referring to deleting the parition and creating one large space and then formatting and installing into that, that is exactly what i did. i think i ned to recover that old partition now becuase i really think it's needed in someway

[EzyStvy]

The small partition on Dell machines hold their diagnostic soft. It’s the same software as on the cd they gave ya.

[glc]

Nope, Dells do ship with a diagnostic partition but it's not needed, unlike Compaq. Remove all partitions till Setup tells you that you have nothing but unallocated space, then tell it to set up there. Make SURE you have any bios antivirus protection disabled.

[Mesaeus]

Windows XP setup always makes the 8mb partition if you let it create the partition to install on. I don't really know what it's for, my guess is to reserve space for any possible third party boot manager ? In any case as far as I know it's not used so you can delete it (but make the partition with another program like Partition Magic or even fdisk(fat32) or it will create the 8 mb partition again). As for the question about Home or Pro, this is because there was still a (hidden) boot.ini present on the partiton you installed to. Windows setup will then create another entry for itself in the same boot.ini, even though the other install does not have any associated files anymore. It's just Microsoft being careful. And yes, it's only a text file, so edit it and delete any superfluous entries.

[killerbarney]

Originally Posted by Mesaeus Windows XP setup always makes the 8mb partition if you let it create the partition to install on. I don't really know what it's for, my guess is to reserve space for any possible third party boot manager ? In any case as far as I know it's not used so you can delete it (but make the partition with another program like Partition Magic or even fdisk(fat32) or it will create the 8 mb partition again). As for the question about Home or Pro, this is because there was still a (hidden) boot.ini present on the partiton you installed to. Windows setup will then create another entry for itself in the same boot.ini, even though the other install does not have any associated files anymore. It's just Microsoft being careful. And yes, it's only a text file, so edit it and delete any superfluous entries.

hmm, that is interesting. i looked for the boot file but i coulnd't find it, is it renamed onto something else?

[glc]

I've never seen XP create a 8mb partition, but it does frequently leave 8mb unallocated at the end of the drive - that's not a partition.

[Mesaeus]

Ah yes, you're right. It's unallocated. Still, the rest of what I say still goes, if you want to avoid it, either make a FAT32 partition of the whole disk with fdisk (win98/me) and later (optionally) convert it to NTFS, or use Partition Manager. I've seen it most at the BEGINNING of the drive, sometimes at the end and sometimes even at the beginning AND the end (probably after several reinstalls). Only Microsoft can tell us what they're trying to accomplish here

Oh, and boot.ini is a hidden system file in the root of your System partition (usually C:\). The easiest way to see it is with cmd.exe, type "attrib -h -s -r boot.ini" when you're in C:\ and press enter. Now you can see it and edit it with any text editor (notepad etc). Or, you can go to Control Panel/System/Advanced, click the Startup & Recovery settings, the options you want are the top most ones. You can even edit the file if you want, or disable the boot menu altogether.

[killerbarney]

that does it! thanks so much!!