I have a dual boot system with 2K and XP pro and i want to remove XP totally from my system. 2K is installed to C using NTFS and XP is installed on a separate drive which is partined in 3 parts. XP is on drive H. What is the simplest and least painful way to remove XP and do NO harm to my 2K installation. Also need the procedure to edit the boot ini file. Not a techie just and educated tinkerer so please keep any explanations simple. Thanks in advance.

'Minimum' effort required: Boot up and set 'default OS to boot' to W2K; boot to it; locate/delete XP folder from the drive (via W2K Explorer). Reboot to verify W2K still OK; presuming it is OK (and it should be), empty recycle-bin and defrag drive(s) to tidy up the scene. *** The above is the 'minimum' required to remove XP, but... with a little more effort you can go a little further - viz: Following the minimum route (above) you will still be using the XP boot-loader to boot to W2K; this is OK but if you want to revert to the W2K version... then run W2K setup and choose the Repair option; allow it to " fixboot " and " fix mbr " (in effect to repair itself) - you do not need an ERD for this, and probably do not have a W2K one anyway at present? This will (should) replace the XP versions of those files/routines (with the W2K versions) and thus reset all to W2K version. *** To remove traces of XP from the boot.ini - edit out those lines in the boot.ini. You can do this by opening the file in Notepad/Wordpad, or by right-clicking on it (it's in the C: root - active Primary) - there should be an option to 'open' and you do just that...; edit out line re XP and save changes. The file is usually hidden/read-only, so you have to remove those attributes in order to access/edit it. This can be done via the file's properties (right-click...) *** A slight variation on the above routines... Delete XP as indicated initially (minimum effort routine). Then start a new W2K setup (CD boot or the 4 floppies - whichever...) and install as: c:\temp\winnt-t and at the first reboot, remove all disks and reboot; you will in effect abort/cancel the installation. When you reboot it will offer the cancelled/aborted installation as default OS to boot. Reset OS to boot to W2K; boot to it; locate and delete the c:\temp\winnt-t folder; also any folders on c: root that start with the $ sign (these are temp folders used during W2K setup and are 'usually' removed at end of a successful set-up); also edit out references to the failed/cancelled/aborted W2K installation in the boot.ini. Confirm boot to W2K is (still) OK; afterwhich empty recyle-bin and defag drive. Make W2K ERD - keep safe/current. This approach will rewrite the MBR and boot/start-up files to W2K level (replacing the XP versions completely). *** To find/view the boot.ini (via W2K): http://computing.net/windows2000/wwwboard/forum/39046.html - Post #6 details it all for you. *** W2K Repair guides: http://is-it-true.org/nt/nt2000/atips/atips71.shtml http://www.rambuk.dk/info/using_the_recovery_console.htm *** Critical item - do NOT remformat C: ... If you do... then it's bye-bye W2K! *** Also not really wise to set time to boot to zero - although many folks advocate this too; you may wish to interverne at boot-time one day...? A few seconds (30 default but perhaps a min of 10?) to wait it not long??? Need any clarification of above routines - post back?