Redundancy...

[Nimbus]

Somehow ended up with two installs of XP Home on the same HDD, so now every time I start up, I have to select one of two identical and working versions of XP... Anyone know how I can get rid of one without formatting and losing all data?

[Cricket]

Are the WinXP installations on different hard drives? Different partitions of the same hard drive? Or on the same partition?

Cricket

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Cricket Are the WinXP installations on different hard drives? Different partitions of the same hard drive? Or on the same partition? Cricket

Not sure... definitely on the same hard drive, cause I formatted the other one... but same or different partitions? I don't know. How can I discern if the two are on different partitions or not? All I know is that every time the computer boots, whether cold or warm, it goes to a screen that asks me to choose which installation of Windows to start.

[Statica]

Open boot.ini from your C:\ and check to see what partitions are being used. If it's the same partition, you can just delete one of the entries. If you have a doubt as to what it entails paste the contents of your boot.ini file.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Statica Open boot.ini from your C:\ and check to see what partitions are being used. If it's the same partition, you can just delete one of the entries. If you have a doubt as to what it entails paste the contents of your boot.ini file.

So I'm going to guess that it's a bad thing if I can't find the boot.ini file? I found it on my other computer, but it's location didn't translate to the computer in question. Search didn't turn it up either... what do I do now?

[Statica]

The boot.ini must be hidden .. not a big deal .. go to the control panel > system applet > Advanced tab > Startup & Recovery - Settings button > Click the EDIT button.

[Nimbus]

Originally Posted by Statica The boot.ini must be hidden .. not a big deal .. go to the control panel > system applet > Advanced tab > Startup & Recovery - Settings button > Click the EDIT button.

Okay, found it. Thanks for that... now, it does show two installations of XP on the same partition... you said earlier that I could just delete one of those entries? Are they in the same order that they're listed when it boots? Apparently, upon further review, the second one does not work... a corrupted driver : \system32\hal.dll. I'm sure I could fix it, but I'd just as soon delete that one, if it's as straight forward as it seems.

[Statica]

Yes you can just delete off the bad entry; make sure that it is not the default OS entry. You can further delete the contents of the directory that the bad XP install is located, if you want to consolidate the space.

[Nimbus]

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating system]
multi(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect /noexecute=optin
multi(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /fastdetect

This is somewhat the way the boot file looks.. just want to make sure that I'm deleting the right one from the right place...
I'm guessing that the first place that says WINDOWS before [operating system] is not the one I want to delete. Is the one that's currently running the one without the /noexecute=optin ? Thanks for the quick replies too, btw

[Statica]

You don't know which one you're running?

Try this:
change the boot.ini to reflect the following changes (italicized)

[boot loader] timeout=30 default=multi(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS [operating system] multi(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Line1" /fastdetect /noexecute=optin multi(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Line2" /fastdetect

Now start XP, first by selecting the XP Line 1; if it loads fine, reboot & try Line 2. I'm assuming one of them fails, right? Once you've established which version doesn't work, just delete that line from the [operating system] list.

FYI - what's different -
XP SP2 has better handling of DEP (data execution protection), this is a set of technologies, both on the hardware and software side, designed to perform checks on memory. This is designed to "protect" certain memory segments on your computer, thereby preventing a malicious attack. For example, on newer AMD and Intel processors, there are areas that are "tagged" as protected, where code will not be executed. The /noexecute=OptIn (default setting) DEP is enabled only on Windows system executables for processors that are capable of hardware DEP.

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Important to note that you don't need to clear any directory or files, because both installations run from the same location. It's just a matter of isolating which one gives you the error.

[Nimbus]

Great! Sorry I'm such a novice at this... starts up like a charm, thanks. Albeit a little sluggish, but that's a whole other issue! I appreciate the help.

[Statica]

So which line worked for you?

You're welcome; and no harm being a novice at anything.
Hopefully you can get your speed issues sorted out as well.
Cheers

[Nimbus]

So it ended up being the first line that worked. I'll work on the speed thing later. Just happy to not have to select an XP installation everytime. Thanx again for the learning, and if you have any tips on streamlining my windows, they too will be very appreciated.