Before discussing the removal of Windows 2000 is important to understand a little of how the system works. When you format a hard drive, you have the option of creating a partition equal to the size of the disk, or divide the disk into two or more smaller partitions. Once you have done so, you should choose such a partition to be active. Windows recognizes only one at a time so active, regardless of how many disks or partitions you have. You can see what is set active partition using fdisk program available on Win 9X boot disk. This will be active in C: \ drive on your system. When you install an operating system, the files needed to boot system that will always be placed on the active partition, even if the operating system itself is installed in a different partition. When you have only one operating system installed, both the initialization files, the operating system itself and are usually in the C: \ drive. However, if you are using more than one operating system, you can have installations in D: \ E: \ drives, for example, but the boot files for both these facilities would still be placed in the C: \ drive. Once you understand this, and of course we know each boot files of the operating system use, then, the process of removing an operating system becomes simpler.

Remove a single installation windows 2000

A simple way to remove an installation is to boot from a Windows 9X Floppy Boot Disk, and do a quick format of the partition where the operating system is installed for example, FORMAT C: / Q. This will, of course, erase all files on the partition however, so make sure you have made the backup any files needed in advance. Windows 9x Boot Disk only recognises FAT and FAT32 partitions however, so if you have installed Windows 2000 on an NTFS partition, you need to use fdisk to delete the partition. Under fdisk NTFS show as a partition unknown, but it may still be excluded.

If you do not want to format the partition that you can remove an installation in a partition FAT/FAT32, booting from a Windows 9X Floppy Boot Disk, and manually deleting the files, boot, in the C: \ partition. The files that use Windows 2000 are boot.ini, bootsect.dos, ntldr, ntdetect.com and ntbootdd.sys (Note: Not all of these files may be present). These are the hidden files however, so you may need to use the ATTRIB program on the disk boot to make them visible for example, "ATTRIB-HRS C: \ *.*". Then you can use the DELTREE function to delete the directory and WINNT PROGRAM FILES directory. Before using your Boot Disk make sure that the FORMAT, FDISK, ATTRIB, SYS DELTREE and programs are in the floppy. Two other system files that you may want to remove the files paging, pagefile.sys, and the hibernation file, hiberfil.sys.



Remove windows of 2000 A dual boot with Windows 9x

The method of removing the Windows 2000 from a dual boot system is basically the same as above with an additional complication - Windows 2000 Boot Loader. The Boot Loader is basically the program that creates the menu you see when booting, wondering what operating system you want to use. The Boot Loader menu, along with the time-time that the menu is displayed come from the information contained in the boot.ini file. To remove the Windows 2000, therefore, it is also necessary to remove this Boot Loader programme: this is done by using the command SYS Windows 9X Boot Disk to transfer control the boot process for Windows 9X eg "SYS C:". This can also be done simultaneously with Windows 9X, a Command Prompt. Once the Boot Loader is removed, you can remove the files in the Windows 2000 and above.

Remove windows 9x a dual boot with Windows 2000

This is a little more simple, and can be done while working in Windows 2000. Remove the property only read the boot.ini file, and then open the file using boot.ini notepad. Erase the lines that refer to Windows 9X, ensuring that the first Pattern = line refers to your installation of Windows 2000, Windows 9X not! If you are not happy, which deletes the reference to Windows 9X, you can simply disable it in the boot.ini file by adding the line [any text] above the information you want to disable, for example,

[Boot Loader]

Timeout = 3

Default = multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (1) \ WINNT

[Operating Systems]

Multi (0) disk (0) rdisk (0) partition (1) \ WINNT = "Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" / fastdetect / nodebug

[Any text]

C: \ = "Microsoft Windows Millennium Edition"

Then you may want to adjust timeout = 0 for the Boot Loader not show: the system will boot directly into Windows 2000. Then delete the WINDOWS PROGRAM FILES folders and the Windows 9X partition, and delete the files boot: io.sys, msdos.sys, command.com and if necessary autoexec.bat and config.sys.