Removing one partition on dual-boot system - Implications?

On my workshop PC I'm running W98 on partition C and XPP on partition D of a single HDD.

W98 was set up first and XP added after, which I understood at the time I did it, to be the recommended arrangement for dual-boot setups.

Now, I want to get rid of C, as I never use W98, and reallocate the partition space to D.

I was just about to format or delete C with Partition Magic and it suddenly occurred to me that I might affect the bootability of D.

Anyone know what's likely to happen?

Thanks.

 

That should be quick and easy. The missing OS will still be listed in the boot.ini file and will be offered at boot up but that's easily fixed. You can edit it out manually or boot to XP and run msconfig and click on the boot.ini tab and select "Check All Boot Paths" and it will offer to make the necessary deletion for you.

Once you get the deleted system line removed from the boot.ini file, the menu will no longer be offered at boot up. The pause for selection does not occur if only one system is listed, assuming you have the delay time set as a positive integer.

Good luck.

 

Thanks, Surferdude - good tip!

Cheers.

 

surferdude2- one of us is missreading the problem. ?

IF you format C: you will not be able to boot to the hdd at all. When you installed XP its boot up files was placed on to drive C: . The XP partition would also have to be made into a parmary partiton , right now it is likely an extended volume. There are ways to do what you want but I can not help, surferdude2 can.

 

I did wonder about that - like, the XP boot files are in the C:\W98 partition. I think I must have to copy these off then replace them later?

 

Unlike the Win9X system, the XP operating system can reside on any partition you choose. It will default and look for its bootloader files on the root of the Primary drive only if they are missing from the drive or partition indicated in the boot.ini file. (If the boot.ini file is completely missing, it will also look on the Primary root for bootloader files.) If you have any booting problems, they can be handled by running the recovery Console and invoking the fixboot command or other available commands. This is not normally needed but it's available, assuming you have the XP install CD.

If you have no CD, you can make a bootloader floppy that will allow booting XP when it has lost its own boot files. I have posted a self executing file on my webspace that can make this bootloader floppy for you. Download and run XpBtLd.exe and it will ask for a blank floppy to create the files on. This will be good insurance in the event of any unexpected problems. I recommend keeping one around at all time for emergency use when something untoward happens to the bootloader files on XP root.


If you have any problem downloading that file, you can easily make your own bootloader floppy. MS outlines the process:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305595

They tend to make it sound harder than it is so that's why the other method came about.

Beyond those precautionary issues, you can also repair most booting problems by invoking the Recovery Console. From the command line in the RC, you can run fixboot and bootcfg /rebuild and fixmbr if needed.

As you can see, there are many options available and we can't actually know if you'll need them or even which one.

Rather than send you off to school, I'd say the safest route would be to make the bootloader floppy and test it to assure that it can boot you all the way to the menu screen and then to Windows XP. With that one tool, you are protecting yourself against a wide variety of things that probably won't happen but may under certain circumstances.

Good luck. Post back if any ??
BTW, if you want to avoid all of the above possibilities, why not just delete the Win98 files and leave C:\ drive with no files except the three bootloader files for XP. Those are:

boot.ini
ntdetect.com
ntldr

(Be sure you are showing all files, Hidden and System in order to see these)

Formatting is not necessary and may cause you extra work for no real reason. Even then, I still recommend having the bootloader floppy for a precautionary measure. It's just a nice tool to have around.

EDIT: Some more reassurance and directions for the simple route.

 

Thanks for the fullsome explanation, Surferdude. All of that sounds like good sense so I'll get onto it today or tomorrow and report back. I'll also get that file from your site.

Much appreciated.

 

Surferdude, the boot disk worked great, thanks. A very handy tool. It even worked on my main PC. Yay.

Just a couple of hiccups - perhaps you wouldn't mind commenting?

I'd read somewhere (or maybe you said it) that c:\boot/ini needed to be edited to remove the line:
C:\=Microsoft Windows 9x

Instead of deleting this line I remmed it to begin with. Rebooting saw the options menu still in place (Choice of XP or 98) but 98 was referred to as "C:\.." or something similar, instead of it's previous designation, which was "Microsoft Windows" if I recall aright.

So I rebooted and took the C:\=Microsoft Windows 9x line out of boot.ini.

Rebooted and no boot menu came up, it just went straight into XP. So far, so good.

Next, I deleted everything on C except for boot.ini, ntdetect.com and ntldr. Dunno why but I also kept bootsector.dos.

Rebooted and C was empty except for those four files.

Next went to Partition Magic to resize C. Read somewhere that C should be kept at '500 - 800mb" so I dragged the C partition re-sizer to read 800mb.

It started to do the job but said something about 'Too many lost clusters'

So I did it again and tried to resize C to 500mb. Same message again - 'Too many lost clusters'. Gave up and closed Partition Magic.

Only problem, no C drive in My Computer now. Rebooted, still no C drive.

So used System Restore to go back a little and C drive is back again.

So I'm now just scanning and defragging both C and D but I would like to resize D to as large as possible, if it can be done.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

Later - thought I should clarify a couple of points:
File system is FAT32 on both partitions
The HDD is 40g, split into approx 1\3=C, 2\3=D
Partition Magic is v.8

 

Hello masonite,

Why not make use of it as a user data partition?

It should be the other way around, the OS partition should be smaller with just the OS on it with the other partition for user data.

The advantages are that if something happens to the OS, everthing from repair to re-installation won't disturb the user data and if you use drive imaging, it is only the OS that needs imaging with normal backup procedures for the rest.

http://www.windowsbbs.com/showthread.php?t=40176&highlight=ideal

Regards - Charles

 

Run scandisk on the C:\ drive before trying to resize it. It sounds like you have some disk errors that PM can't cope with.

 

Charles: I quite agree; it would be better to have C as the larger drive but that would entail trying to move 10gbs of stuff, including XP, from D to C. Could be more complicated than it's worth - it'd probably be easier to start from scratch and reinstall XPP on a single partition. Multi-partitions used to be all the rage with 98 but I don't think it's any advantage with XP.

Surferdude: Tried a scan from XP but that didn't work, so restarted with a 98 boot disk and ran scandisk C: /autofix /nosave which found and fixed 1 error.

After that, Partition Magic graciously allowed me to reduce C to 839mb (an arbitrary figure - dunno how little I could have got away with).

Then I rebooted and with PM, dragged D as big as it would go. It would only finish the operation after a reboot so I'm just waiting on it to finish as I type this.

Incidentally, it occurred to me that I might have been able to do this job by cloning (I clone drives regularly and get pretty good results with either Acronis Migrate Easy or True Image) the D partition over to a spare drive, along with, I guess, the three boot files remaining on C. Then, format the original drive, then clone the D partition back from the spare drive to the original drive, when I assume it'd become C.

Does this sound feasible? It's kind of an intellectual exercise now, if what I'm doing works, but it might be handy for future reference.

Cheers

 

Followup: The Partition Magic exercise worked (after a couple of hiccupy reboots). C now = 838mb and D now = 36.4gb.

Thanks guys!

Still curious about the cloning idea I mentioned previously. D'ya reckon it'd work?

Cheers.

 

No doubt deploying a TI image file to another partition will work, I have done that with success on several occasions.

The only requirement I am aware of is, the target drive must be as large or larger than the original source drive.

Best regards.

 

Thanks, surferdude2. Sorry, didn't phrase my query too well.

As far as the cloning process goes, I doubt there'd be any problem - those Acronis progs are very efficient and I've used them frequently. Shifting 20gbs from a 40gb drive onto a 30gb drive is no trouble.

No, what I was getting at was the possible implications of recreating a new, single-partition drive which contained the contents of what was previously partition D, plus the three surving files from C; boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com.

Like, would it boot? Or would any of those three files need to be modified?

Guess I should try it and find out ...just being lazy!

Cheers!

 

Hi Masonite,

I quite agree; it would be better to have C as the larger drive but that would entail trying to move 10gbs of stuff, including XP, from D to C.
Perhaps I didn't make myself clear enough, Its XP - the OS - that you would leave on D. The rest to C. To make that easy PM asks what folders you want moved from one partition to another.

This is not about making C, or D larger by drive letter, but about where the OS is and where user data is.

Regards - Charles

 

I appreciate your input, Charles. But it's working pretty good now so I think I'll leave it the way it is. It's only my workshop machine, so it's no BFD, but it was an interesting exercise in stuff I normally don't get involved in.

Thanks for your help!

 

I now understand better what you meant.

I would guess after you perform that action of copying all the present data to a single new partition that it would need some help before it was bootable. The ntdetect.com and ntldr will be OK as is. The old boot.ini would need to be edited to change the line:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS=(your system name and switch)

to become:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=(your system name and switch)

That's just a simple change of the partition number.

Then it's quite possible that the MBR may need to be repaired. That's easily done by booting to the Recovery Console and invoking the fixmbr command. For that matter, you can probably do the whole job from within the RC by running the three commands:

fixmbr
fixboot
bootcfg /rebuild

That would relieve you of the need to edit the boot.ini manually. Personally, I would do the manual edit and try booting. If no go, then do the RC procedure and the three repair commands.

That sounds like a good exercise for a rainy day. If/when you do that, post back your results so others can benefit from your steps.

Charlesvar has given you the easy out for now and it should serve you well since you can take advantage of having PM.

Best regards.

 

Masonite, I was busy peckin' while you posted,

Yes, there is wisdom in leaving things alone when they work as well as needed. I have been know to improve things out of existence on occasion.

 

Ok, I can appreciate that and good luck.

Regards - Charles

 

Thanks guys, you've been extremely helpful. Actually, I have a spare drive laying about so I'll do the clone exercise**, just to see what happens.

Thanks for the info on that aspect, Surferdude. LOL, know what you mean about 'improving things out of existence'. On occasions I've had a customer's machine in for a quick cleanup and sent it back reformatted with a new system because I cleaned it up so well, it wouldn't run any more

Cheers.

**BTW - I know this is kinda off-topic, but there's 12gbs of images on the D partition that I might as well burn off onto CD before I try the clone operation. These are big images (2+gb) so, to that end mainly, I've just got myself a DVD burner, a Liteon 1693S. I've been putting this DVD business off, as it seems like a big can of worms I didn't really want to open, but I don't think I can put it off any longer.

My question is this:
Leaving aside the subject of movies and movie copying, what's a good prog for simple DVD data burning? I currently use Nero6 for CD burning, but is there something better for general DVD data burning?

Thanks again.