Question regarding removal of Multi-Boot Setup

[Web Gecko]

Howdy

This question relates to another thread where reboot (knowledgeable and helpfull person) and another user advised someone with an XP multi-boot
setup how to edit his boot.ini to get rid of an unwanted menu entry.
I learnt something usefull from that.

My question is this. With Win 95 and 98 you could boot from floppy and SYS the boot track of your HDD which would overwrite any multi-boot loader and write a single boot loader (which starts the primary partition) effectively taking you straight into your single OS on the primary partition.

Editting the boot.ini is fine if you only want one entry which takes you into the one OS on your system. But this does not remove the multi-boot loader. If you are only running one OS then you don't need the multi-boot loader.
I know that starting your system this way don't make any difference. If I was only running one OS I would want my startup to go straight into my primary partition and start it.

Isn't it possible to overwrite the boot track (multi-boot loader) to remove multi-boot and install a single boot loader under Win XP ? How about Win Me and Win 2K ?

Thanks

The Web Gecko

[reboot]

In windows 9x/me, you simply fdisk/mbr and sys the drive (using the startup diskette) to get a single boot. Win Nt/2k/XP need boot.ini to work, thus the edit is necessary. If you only have one OS, and it's set as default, you can bypass the delay in loading it (showing the boot menu), by editing the "timeout = 30" line, to say: timeout = 0

[Web Gecko]

Thanks mate !

One of these days I'll get up to speed with all this stuff.

No doubt with the quality of advice (brilliant) I get here
I should make the grade.

cheers

The Web Gecko

from downunder

[jeresimo]

Ok, I dual boot XP Pro with Win 98, but if you don't choose
the option what OS to use after 30 secs, XP will start automatically.
Is there anyway not to let XP do it and let me decide for it. Thanks.

[reboot]

Remove the DEFAULT line from boot.ini

[alber]

i have a question on the same topic...i used a win98 start-up disk to get cd rom support to load win2k, however win98 was never actually loaded(brand new build, formatted hd) on the machine..i still get the boot menu asking which o/s do i want to go to win2k or 98, there is no boot.ini file, i looked for that...is that menu some place else, i just want to turn the power on and go right into 2k.

thanks

[alber]

just to follow up on my previous post, i did have a boot.ini file and it really helps when you 'unhide' the system files...now i feel like an idiot, but for those of you scratching your heads...you can stop now

[Web Gecko]

alber,

The following info was supplied by reboot (Jim) in another thread (see above).

Just edit boot.ini in notepad.
It will look something like this:

[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 2K Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS = "Microsoft Windows"

Make it look like this:
[boot loader]
timeout = 0
default = multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS = "Microsoft Windows 2K Professional" /fastdetect

In other words, just remove all the stuff relating to the second OS.
DO NOT change the numbers inside the brackets () !


According to Jim NT, Win2K and Win XP operate with the boot menu so you may be stuck with it. But I think, also according to Jim you can change the above timeout value from 30 to 0 and your system will default to Win 2K and go straight on in. I have changed your edit end result to reflect this.

I don't have a Win 2K system so I can't test this.

See how it goes.

The Web Gecko