Replace dual-XP installs with single-XP install and repartition drive?
- by caeious
Hello,
The Current Situation
I have a hard drive that currently is split up like so:
Primary Partition
C: 9.77 GB NTFS Healthy (System) with XP Pro (in Polish) installed
Extended Partition
D: 39.82 GB NTFS Healthy (Boot) with XP Pro (in English) installed
6.30 GB Free space
When I start my comuter I get a black and white Windows Boot Manager dual boot screen with 2 choices both being Microsoft Windows XP. The first choice is the English version of XP and the second choice is the Polish version of XP.
Images of my Computer Management window and Dual Boot screen
The Mission
What I need to do is get rid of the entire extended partition (D: 39.82 GB & 6.30 free space) and just have the one primary C: drive which I assume will be somewheres around 55 GB big. So in the end I just want XP Pro in English running on my C: drive and no black and white boot screen to show up when starting up my laptop.
The Question
How do I go about successfully completing The Mission with out making my computer a useless pile of silicon, plastic and metal?
UPDATE:
So I went ahead and tried to follow Neal's suggestion but hit a wall. I got to a Windows XP Pro install screen that had the 3 following options as well as my drive data:
To set up Windows XP on the selected item, press Enter
To create a partition in the unpartitioned space, press C
To delete the selected partition, press D
57232 MB Disk 0 at Id 0 on bus 0 on atapi [MBR]
C: Partition1 [NTFS] 10001 MB ( 4642 MB free )
Unpartitioned space 6448 MB
D: Partition2 [NTFS] 40774 MB ( 26225 MB free )
Unpartitioned space 8 MB
I figured I would go with the first choice ((To set up Windows XP on the selected item, press Enter))
because I just wanted to set up Windows XP on C: Partition1 (which was preselected) so I pressed Enter which brought me to a screen displaying this message:
You chose to install Windows XP on a partition that contains another operating system. Installing Windows XP on this partition might cause the other operating system to function improperly.
CAUTION: Installing multiple operating systems on a single partition is not recommended.
So this leads me to 2 new questions:
How do I get rid of the Windows XP (Polish language) install on C: Partition 1 so that I can cleanly and safely install Windows XP (English language) on it? Neal, is this what you meant by me possibly having to delete the partition that the Windows XP (Polish language) install was located on?
Since I have the option to delete partitions with the 3rd choice ((To delete the selected partition, press D)), should I do that on this screen or wait until I have Windows XP (English language) safely installed on C: Partition 1?
I have to ask these questions because I have read that it is possibly dangerous to delete hard drive partitions. Just being cautious.
