Windows XP or Windows XP ?

[Marke522]

Hello, I just got done working on a DELL for someone, he had a bunch of problems with it from watching certain adult material, and wanted me to erase it all. He didn't have his recovery CD's but he didn't want the bundled software anyway. Just Windows XP.

So I used my XP disc to format his harddrive, erased his partition, made another one, reinstalled the operating system and eventually found all the drivers for his hardware. That part took longer than it should have cause the computer didn't have a floppy, I had to get creative a few times. Needed to use a USB Flash Memory and a USB\Network Adaptor to get online.

It's running good now, but when I first boot, it asks me to choose from Windows XP, or Windows XP. It's like I made a dual boot system, but I didn't. If I let the timer run out, or select the top option, it runs just like it should. If I select the bottom optoin, I get this strange error about not being able to find the OS.

Is there a way to fix this ? What did I do wrong ?

[kram 2.0]

Once you're in the windows environment, check out how many partition you created in the reformating process.

kram

[patrickt]

If you go control panel - system - advanced - startup and recovery. click on settings for startup and recovery. In the system startup section of the new box you'll see an "edit" button. If you push it you should see a text file and there should be two "Microsoft Windows XP blah-blah" listed. I suspect they'll be identical. Delete one and you should be okay.

[glc]

What did I do wrong ?

You didn't totally erase the hard drive. The boot sector needed to be wiped - best way to do this is with a zero fill hard drive utility.

[TwoRails]

Originally Posted by glc You didn't totally erase the hard drive. The boot sector needed to be wiped - best way to do this is with a zero fill hard drive utility.

Does Win Xp have a MBR utility that could fix that without starting over?

[Marke522]

In the system startup section of the new box you'll see an "edit" button. If you push it you should see a text file and there should be two "Microsoft Windows XP

Thanks for the tip Patrick, that worked great. There were two XP's,
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn and also
Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

I deleted the second one and it boots with no trouble at all.

Thanks for the quick replys gang, and for all the ideas.