Two Operating Systems

[airpowr]

I trying to resolve a problem for a friend. He had a virus on his system and it crashed. Well he formated the hard drive and had several errors. Somehow he now has two copies of XP on his system. So when he starts up it asks him which one he would like to start. One starts up fine, the other gives him an error and won't allow it to start. Not only that, but when he tries to reload all the programs he used to have on his original system, the operating systems says that they already exist. Obviously they are on the other version of XP that has an error. How does he delete the other operating system?

Thanks is advance!
Airpowr

 

[wolluf]

Does he really want a clean install of XP? (ie, drive wiped clean - then XP put on). If so, I'd boot from XP install CD, choose new install, ignore the offer to repair, then at the partitioning screen, use the tools to delete exisiting partition(s) & create a new one. Then install as normal. Obviously back up anything he wants to keep first. You may have to remove some boot menu entries from boot.ini after this (can just be edited out) as XP install has annoying habit of loading cxurrent boot,ini into memory - so even if you wipe drive it keeps old entries.

If just remove old XP installation - I'm presuming both are installed into different folders (original in Windows, new on in Win?). If so, you need to remove the original 'windows' (ie, system) folder, and again remove entry in boot.ini which selects it. All the program files stuff will still be there - but only apps (re)installed under the new installation can be guaranteed to work.

If its not 2 folders - please post back with details of how 2 installations are set up.