Uninstalling Windows 2000

Hi Christer, well my old brain just hasn’t been able to drop this PE environment thing in the last two days and I got a few ideas so had to test them. Thought perhaps the drive needed more than one partition, or even more than one OS. Then thought perhaps it was all to do with the boot.ini file and previous entries, so set up some dual then triple boot using the ntloader. Then I thought the ntloader and boot.ini needs to be on something other than the first partition. Must have ran a dozen scenarios, each time deleting all partitions and doing fresh installs alternatively with Home and Pro. Still can’t get it to do it. My last idea is perhaps it is somehow hardware specific and related to certain bios’, motherboards or hard drives. Or perhaps it is just an occasional glitch in the install. I’ve done all this on one machine with just one hard drive fitted and mostly with the pre service pack XP CDs.

One interesting side note is I’ve discovered the Zip drive problem has not been fixed with the service packs as I had assumed. If you are booting to the install PE environment when the hard drive has no partitions on it then the Zip will still be given the C: drive letter and the new install will get the last letter after all the other CD drives etc. If you reboot after creating a partition then all goes fine and the Zip gets the last assigned drive letter. So I’ve discovered an easier solution than disconnecting the Zip drive. I suppose it’s just been so long since I installed to a totally clean hard drive that I just assumed the Zip problem had been fixed.

I’ll digest your last two posts and reply later.

 

No, all my tests were done without rebooting between deleting the partitions and creating the new one and installing. During these test I was just curious why I was not having the problem with the Zip drive as I was using the pre service pack CDs. Done a few extra tests installs to see what was going on with the Zip.

Certainly sounds like that hard drive had some seriously mixed up partitions. I’ve seen similar things and the biggest culprits I’ve found are usually Partition Magic or Drive Image. I’ve never used DELPART but have something similar that can recover supposedly dead drives. Looks like you have acquired a perfectly good drive for free.

Sorry to be still banging on about this PE environment thing and I hope you realise I’m not trying to have an argument on this, but merely curious to find out what’s going on. If you are correct then at least we have already figured out a solution – reboot after creating the partition.

Well so far I can’t duplicate it but I'm still open minded. The fact that fdisk and diskpart want to reboot after creating partitions doesn’t I feel add any weight to the idea as I’m sure this is simply to remap drive letters. With fdisk when you create a new partition it will assign letters to the partitions as Win9x will, C:, D:, E:, etc however these letters are already assigned to the Ram drive and CD drives etc, so a reboot is required to release the drive letters for the new partitions, and to assign the next free letters to the ram/CD drives. If you tried formatting a new partition by the newly assigned drive letter you would actually be formatting a different partition/drive.

I’m not too familiar with the command line diskpart, but it does not automatically assign drive letters, you have to do it manually. I don’t know but can’t see any other reason for rebooting but to make sure letters are mapped correctly.

With the XP install environment (not sure if the correct technical term is PE environment) when you create a partition it will automatically be assigned a drive letter. If it’s the first partition on the drive then it will be C: as this will have been reserved for it. If it is a second partition it will get the next available drive letter after all those already assigned to other drives like CDs etc. So the second partition could come out as E: F: whatever. If you reboot at this point back to the install environment it will be remapped to D:

Now I see your point that this may be where the problem lies, but the install will format the correct partition without any confusion and remap it correctly during the install. I’m sure Microsoft planned this because of the way WinNT remembers drive letters of previously mounted devices. I’m running out of a cohesive argument now, so will quite there.

 

uninstalling 2000

Gentlemnan.....thank you for your advice. I was able to uninstall (I think) Windows 2000 by booting the computer with the XP disc (service pak 2). I do not get the dual boot message any longer and the computer goes right into Windows XP. Is there any way to check that the Windows 2000 OS has definetly been removed from my hard drive?
Bob

 

Hi Torcano,

Is there any way to check that the Windows 2000 OS has definetly been removed from my hard drive?
One of the questions asked in post#5:

On C:\ how many 'WINDOWS' folders are there?

Regards - Charles

 

uninstall 2000

Christer,
I reformatted a partition (C?) when asked. I was warned about loosing data etc.
Charles,
I am at work now so I can not check the folders. I'll psot the answer to your questions later.
You have both been very helpful.
Bob

 

uninstalling 2000

When I checked the computer in which I uninstalled Windows 2000, I only have one Vol C which is a FAT32 system. I assume this means that have have fully erased the Windows 2000 OS from my computer. By comparsion, I went to another computer I have with XP pre-installed ( it never had Windows 2000 on it) and it indicates that it has two Volumes C and D. C is a NFTS system and D is a FAT 32 system. What does this mean? Is there any disadvantage by having my laptop only have one Volume?
Bob

 

uninstall 2000

You are right on target. The D partition has system restore information and only 3.9 GB of space while the C partition has 89GB. I'm am curious why the D partition is using a FAT32 system and the C partition uses NTFS.
Bob

 

uninstall 2000

Christer and Charles,
Thanks for your help. My problem appears to be solved so I am signing off of this thread. It is comforting to know there is an impressive computer knowledge base out there in cyberspace for the asking. Look for my post the next time I mess up my computer
Bob