Chad Harris

An alternative method is this (in addition to disconnecting the 2nd SATA
drive):

In order to safely remove Vista and get back that Windows XP’s bootloader,
perform the following steps:-

Boot into Windows XP
Open Command Prompt. To open command prompt click ‘Start’ > ‘Run’. Type ‘cmd’
without quotes and press OK.
Type ‘cd c:\boot\’ , (where ‘c:’ is your Windows XP’s installation drive)
without quotes and press Enter key.
Now type the command ‘fixntfs -xp’ without quotes and press Enter key.
Restart the machine. Windows XP’s bootloader should be back now.
Save any data that you wish to keep from the Windows Vista partition by
copying it into the Windows XP’s partition.
Now lets format the Windows Vista partition. If you do not wish to format
your Vista partition, but just delete the Vista files, skip to step 10. Go
to Control Panel > Administrative Tools > Computer Management.
Click on Disk Management.
Right click the Windows Vista’s partition and click Format and follow the
instructions.
If you do not wish to format your partition and just wish to delete the
Windows Vista’s folders, you can follow the steps given in “Permission
denied” - Data recovery in Windows XP. Follow the steps that talk about
taking ownership of the data/ folders to take ownership of Windows Vista’s
folders. One you have taken the ownership of the Windows Vista folders you
will be able to delete them.

CH


"Dan" <none@hotmail.com> wrote in message
news:n-KdndpbKtVhaA_YnZ2dnUVZ_ompnZ2d@comcast.com...
>I have a 2 hdd system with 3 OS's:
>
> 1) XP on C:\, the 1st partition of SATA hdd 1. This was the 1st OS
> installed on the newly build machine. This is the partition which has the
> "boot" directory containing the BCD files.
> 2) Vista on J:\, partition one of my 2nd SATA drive. The 2nd OS installed
> on the machine.
> 3) Vista on F:\, partition 3 of SATA drive 1 (this installation was an
> error, I meant to replace the Vista J:\, but it installed a fresh copy
> here instead).
>
> I want to remove Vista entirely. I have tried running fixmbr followed by
> fixboot from the repair console, directing it to C:\. Also tried running
> them in the opposite order (fixboot followed by fixmbr). In both cases,
> the Vista boot menu still appears as it did before I ran these repairs. I
> am afraid to wipe the Vista partitions under these circumstances, for fear
> of not being able to boot into XP. How can I restore boot.ini & XP as the
> sole OS?
>
> Thanks
>
> Dan
>