RiderDude wrote:

> one of my dumb kids infested my dell dimension 2400 with everyspyware
> program known to man (and a few unknown ones). i tried washing them
> out, and scrubbing them out, but the stains were still there. i ended
> up doing a clean install of XP from the disks which i miracuously
> found in the attic. deleted all partitions and built a single new
> NTFS partition and nestled XP snugly therein. problem is, now when i
> boot, BIOS thinks there are 2 OSs on the disk and asks me to choose
> the one i want to boot from. one works (i'm assuming this is the
> newly installed version), the other doesnt (i'm assuming it's a ghost
> of the old OS rattling around like Jacob Marley). how can i get rid
> of Marley's ghost?


I can't tell what your problem is from the description you've provided, but
I can assure you that the BIOS doesn't
"think there are 2 OSs on the disk." The BIOS doesn't know anything about
operating systems or how many there are, and it's not the BIOS that's asking
you choose the one to boot from; it's the Windows boot loader.

If the boot loader is giving you a choice of two operating systems, there
are two lines in boot.ini describing the two choices. So your statement that
you deleted all partitions, built a new one, and installed Windows on it
cleanly can't be correct. If you had done that, boot.ini wouldn't reference
two Windows choices.

--
Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
Please reply to the newsgroup

here's what i did:
i booted from the XP disks. when it asked me to choose a partition, i
deleted all the partitions that were listed, created a new NTFS partition,
and told it to install XP there. OK, i now understand that it's XP's boot
sequence that thinks there are 2 OSs, and not BIOS. guess i thought it was
BIOS b/c it's in the B&W screen. (after thinking about it for a minute,
though, i realize that's dumb since it goes through the dell bios boot and
then pops out before getting that screen)
in any case, you've now made me concerned that my edit to boot.ini only
makes xp think there's only one OS, but in fact, there really IS another
partition. could that be?
thanks

"Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:

> I can't tell what your problem is from the description you've provided, but
> I can assure you that the BIOS doesn't
> "think there are 2 OSs on the disk." The BIOS doesn't know anything about
> operating systems or how many there are, and it's not the BIOS that's asking
> you choose the one to boot from; it's the Windows boot loader.
>
> If the boot loader is giving you a choice of two operating systems, there
> are two lines in boot.ini describing the two choices. So your statement that
> you deleted all partitions, built a new one, and installed Windows on it
> cleanly can't be correct. If you had done that, boot.ini wouldn't reference
> two Windows choices.
>
> --
> Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
> Please reply to the newsgroup
>
>
>

You may be a little unclear about the concepts "OS" (Operating
System) and "Partition".

Windows XP is an operating system. Most people have exactly
one OS on their PC. In the vast majority of all cases it is installed
on drive C:. How many OSs do you think you have on your PC?
Which drive(s) are they installed on?

A partition is a fenced-off area of the hard disk. Most PCs
have a single hard disk with a single partition. Some PCs have
a single hard disk with two partitions: One for the OS, one for
data. How many partitions do you have? Run diskmgmt.msc
from Start / Run to see your own partitioning scheme.

If you are still confused about OSs and partitions on your
hard disk, answer the above questions in your reply.


"RiderDude" <RiderDude@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:211821AD-835D-4949-BEBE-D5C4A8805908@microsoft.com...
> here's what i did:
> i booted from the XP disks. when it asked me to choose a partition, i
> deleted all the partitions that were listed, created a new NTFS partition,
> and told it to install XP there. OK, i now understand that it's XP's boot
> sequence that thinks there are 2 OSs, and not BIOS. guess i thought it was
> BIOS b/c it's in the B&W screen. (after thinking about it for a minute,
> though, i realize that's dumb since it goes through the dell bios boot and
> then pops out before getting that screen)
> in any case, you've now made me concerned that my edit to boot.ini only
> makes xp think there's only one OS, but in fact, there really IS another
> partition. could that be?
> thanks
>
> "Ken Blake, MVP" wrote:
>
> > I can't tell what your problem is from the description you've provided,
but
> > I can assure you that the BIOS doesn't
> > "think there are 2 OSs on the disk." The BIOS doesn't know anything
about
> > operating systems or how many there are, and it's not the BIOS that's
asking
> > you choose the one to boot from; it's the Windows boot loader.
> >
> > If the boot loader is giving you a choice of two operating systems,
there
> > are two lines in boot.ini describing the two choices. So your statement
that
> > you deleted all partitions, built a new one, and installed Windows on it
> > cleanly can't be correct. If you had done that, boot.ini wouldn't
reference
> > two Windows choices.
> >
> > --
> > Ken Blake - Microsoft MVP Windows: Shell/User
> > Please reply to the newsgroup
> >
> >
> >