Laptop oddness
 

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[Closed] Laptop oddness

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Posts: 9
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I've acquired an old laptop from work which had Win XP Home on it. Because the previous user is a bit of a meddler I decided to put a fresh install on it of XP Pro.
So I boot from the install CD, remove the two partitions and then formatted the 80Gb drive in NTFS, so no previous os remnants would be left.
All good.
When i go to boot it gives me the choice to boot XP Pro or XP Home. It wont boot to XP Home as its not there.
Do I have to do something in the BIOS so it no longer thinks XP Home is still there?


 
Posted : 17/01/2014 10:24 am
Posts: 12072
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Check the file c:\boot.ini, you may need to edit the other entries out (if there are any!)


 
Posted : 17/01/2014 10:31 am
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Master boot record still has the bootloader in it.

You need to do a MBR clean like this:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/52129-disk-clean-clean-all-diskpart-command.html

I suppose you should have done it before you installed, not sure if you can do it afterwards. Maybe tho 🙂


 
Posted : 17/01/2014 10:36 am
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BIOS has bugger all to do with the boot choices. Very strange to be given those boot options as it does sounds like you've wiped it thoroughly. As per Mogrim, search out info on [url= http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022 ]editing your boot.ini file[/url] and delete the erroneous entry (eg previous installation of Windows 2000 in that link)


 
Posted : 17/01/2014 10:39 am
Posts: 9
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Topic starter
 

Thanks mogrim & z1ppy. I'll give that a bash tonight.


 
Posted : 17/01/2014 10:49 am
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If it's not boot.ini I'd be doing another clean install, but making 100% sure you've selected the delete all data and completely format options - it does sound like you've opted to preserve one of the partitions and it still has crap on it.


 
Posted : 17/01/2014 10:56 am
Posts: 9
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Topic starter
 

Deffo got rid of all the partitions. It was just unpartitioned space which was completely formatted in NTFS format before I started the install, which is why I was a bit unsure.


 
Posted : 17/01/2014 11:45 am
Posts: 9
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Topic starter
 

Yay, removed XP Home from the boot.ini and all is well!
Thanks again!


 
Posted : 17/01/2014 4:49 pm

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