Multi-boot, uninstalling vista and other various issues

[Garci]

Well, let me start by giving you the basics of what's going on.

I have 2 hard drives partitioned in a total 3 partitions (Hard Drive A: 2x 30GB partitions and HD B: 1x 70GB partition). For the sake of order, let's name them partitions A, B and C (A & B being the two partitions of HD A). In partition A I had Windows XP, in partition C I had another Win XP and in B I had nothing.

I installed Vista to partition B a month ago. I don't know much about boot files and such but when I get to the boot loader screen I get the following options:

- Earlier versions of Windows
- Windows Vista

Selecting the first one brings me to the choice of which of the 2 XPs to boot up. I'm guessing this means that I'm booting from partition B.

I now want to remove Vista, but I'm afraid of doing so if it messes up my booting. Formatting the hard drive would remove it, of course, but I don't know what will happen afterwards.

This is Disk Management in Vista, and this is Disk Management in XP. (D: is partition C, F: is partition A and C: is partition B)

The main question is: What should I do? My goal is to go back to only 2 XPs and no Vista. If it's unclear, I'll try to clean it up a bit, and if you need to know anything else, let me know and I'll post it.

 

[KSoD]

You will have to use a XP Disc and go into the recovery console and do a fixboot and fixmbr. Then add the boot.ini from the other XP isntall to the boot.ini of hte one you fixed.

 

[Garci]

Ok, pretty clear, but when you say "fix XP", should I fix a particular one or the one of my choice?

EDIT: And this is after formatting the Vista drive, right?

 

[KSoD]

Yes this is after formatting the Vista drive. When you go into the Recovery Console it will give you your choice of XP installs. You choose which one you want to be the default. From there do the fixboot and fixmbr command. Then boot into XP and add the other XP.