Separate copy of XP

I discovered another copy of WinXP while doing a manual cleanup of my harddisk. It resides in drive E: (my WinXp is currently being run in C: ). A check on the date shows that the files are last modified in March 2002.

During bootup, I do not have the option to boot the other copy of XP in E:, which leads me to believe that whatever I do now doesn't affect or is in anyway related the other copy in XP.

In that case, is it safe for me to just delete E:\Windows from Windows Explorer? It's occupying a hefty 1.8GB of my mediocre 10GB partition.

 

I would say you can safely delete that old copy on the E: drive but I am curious as to how you think it may have gotten there. I would say an install went bad but perhaps you know something else. Have you always had that E: drive from the get-go or did it just appear one day? Are the files on there fully expanded or do the extension have the _ character in them? I'm hinting at the possibility that this was once a hidden partition that contained your oem backup files and perhaps its Partition Table got corrupted and somehow and changed the partition type designation, letting it revealed itself. Just speculation though.. Obviously you might not want to delete it if that's the case.

 

Wow that sounded a little too complicated.

Hmm let me digress from the subject for a few seconds. I've heard of the term OEM plenty of times already, but what does it mean / stand for? From the contexts I've seen it being used, I would guess it refers to products that come installed with ready-made computers. Am I right?

I'm not very sure about this (thanks to my bad memory ), but I think I used to run Windows from E: (C: was just a storage hard drive to contain my projects and stuff), then I think I came down with some virus that spoiled the system. Then I just inserted the WinXP CD, booted from it, and did a new installation on C:. Not sure if that's what I did actually, do you know if that would cause a menu to appear during bootup to choose between the C: and E: copies?

To answer your question, nope, it didn't just appear there. I actually used the E: copy before, but I forgot how I came to install another copy on C:. The above-mentioned is just based on a definitely-not-vivid impression, but it's better than nothing.

I'm not sure what you meant about the files being fully expanded, nor the part about the extension. I could just say that it used to be a working copy of XP.

It hasn't got anything to do with Partition Table, I ain't got it. But I'm quite certain it isn't related with partitioning, since that would explain the sudden revealing of the drive, which isn't the case here.

Okay, with this updated information, do you reckon it would be safe to just hit the Del key? TIA