Ziachild007 Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 I bought a laptop from a guy at work a few weeks ago and went to restore it to factory settings. While I was doing this I found out that someone else had started to install Windows XP, but didnt not finish it. So now I have 2 Windows XP operating systems on my computer. Not sure if it will hurt anything having both of them, but I would like to get rid of one, regardless. Any thoughts/suggestions? TIA Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AtomicCEO Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 There should be some option during install to repartition the drive. Just wipe the existing partition and create a new one... then install to it. That'll delete everything and start over, making sure you don't have any straggler files. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursa Majoris Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 I bought a laptop from a guy at work a few weeks ago and went to restore it to factory settings. While I was doing this I found out that someone else had started to install Windows XP, but didnt not finish it. So now I have 2 Windows XP operating systems on my computer. Not sure if it will hurt anything having both of them, but I would like to get rid of one, regardless. Any thoughts/suggestions? TIA Only one of the two is operational. The other is most likely a parallel install. How do you know there are two copies on the disk? Is the disk partitioned to be 2 drives e.g. C and D drives? If you run a command window (Start / Run, then type CMD in the field, then Enter) you can type SET at the prompt and a bunch of info shows up. One of the pieces of alphabeticized info is SystemRoot. Where SystemRoot points to is the real active copy of Windows. The other should be inactive and can be deleted. On the other hand, you can do like Atomic said and start from scratch. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziachild007 Posted June 18, 2006 Author Share Posted June 18, 2006 There should be some option during install to repartition the drive. Just wipe the existing partition and create a new one... then install to it. That'll delete everything and start over, making sure you don't have any straggler files. Do I format it as FAT or NTFS??? Only one of the two is operational. The other is most likely a parallel install. How do you know there are two copies on the disk? Is the disk partitioned to be 2 drives e.g. C and D drives? If you run a command window (Start / Run, then type CMD in the field, then Enter) you can type SET at the prompt and a bunch of info shows up. One of the pieces of alphabeticized info is SystemRoot. Where SystemRoot points to is the real active copy of Windows. The other should be inactive and can be deleted. On the other hand, you can do like Atomic said and start from scratch. Yeah, I am pretty sure that only one was functional, but just wasnt sure if it would cause any problems down the road. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ursa Majoris Posted June 18, 2006 Share Posted June 18, 2006 Do I format it as FAT or NTFS??? Yeah, I am pretty sure that only one was functional, but just wasnt sure if it would cause any problems down the road. I use NTFS - it is more efficient. The second copy of Windows won't cause problems, it's just taking up space. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ziachild007 Posted June 18, 2006 Author Share Posted June 18, 2006 I use NTFS - it is more efficient. The second copy of Windows won't cause problems, it's just taking up space. Got it! Reformatted in NTFS and everything seems to be like I want it. Thanks for the help guys. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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