[AT_curiousB]

Hi People,

I have a problem and need the help of all you Guru's out there, I did a quick search and could find nothing relating to this on the forum, and if it has been asked and answered before, then I apologise, but I really could do with some pointers.

I have a dual boot system, WinME on the C and WinXP Pro on the D.

I would like to now change to using WinXP only, but having tweaked the system, drivers etc, I really do not want to have to do a format and clean install of XP. Is there anyway of removing ME and recovering the partition, merging it with the D.

I would really appreciate your input.

[Zardon]

the easiest way to do this is to get yourself a copy of partition magic 7

http://www.powerquest.com/partitionmagic/

Exciting New Functionality in PartitionMagic 7.0

Merge NTFS partitions
*Support for Windows XP
*Partition hard drives as large as 80 GB
*Access and partition external USB drives
*Undelete a deleted partition from rescue disks
Other Powerful Features:
*Organize and protect the information on your hard drive
*Easy, step-by-step wizards help you perform partitioning tasks
*Preview the effects of partitioning your hard drive before implementing anything
*Safely manage multiple operating systems
*Convert from one file system or partition type to another without losing data
*Supports FAT, FAT32, NTFS, and Linux ext2/Swap

PC enthusiasts have long understood the benefits hard drive partitioning. Dividing a hard drive into several partitions lets you efficiently organize operating systems, programs, and data. Until PowerQuest's PartitionMagic came along, modifying partitions was a difficult and time consuming task -- demanding that you back up your data, delete existing partitions, create and format new partitions, reinstall the operating system and finally, restoring the data (which hopefully wasn't destroyed along the way). And, if you wanted to modify your configuration, you had to repeat the entire lengthy process.

With exciting new functionality and an easy to use Windows interface, PartitionMagic 7.0 -- the world's most trusted partitioning program, -- now puts the benefits of hard-drive partitioning within the reach of everyone. You can create, resize, split, merge, delete, undelete, and convert partitions -- all without destroying data -- and it only takes just a few minutes!

[sinjin]

won't he have problems when it comes time to renaming the drives after merging the first 2 partitions?

[DarkAngel]

Careful there useing PM7 on a WinXP Pro OS. I used it (for a very similar sit.) and it hosed my box 100%. I was pretty pissed over the whole deal, but ended up being a good thing (getting rid of WinME...where are flamers when you need one?).

In WinXP I had setup my booting so that it would go into WinXP automatically. After that was running smoothly I started to remove WinME/98 from the C Drive piece by piece until I had about 200mb left of the OS. Thats when I got a copy of PM7 and hosed everything.

[Zardon]

partition magic is fiddly and mistakes are easily made, im not saying you made a mistake as like all software issues can arise, but ive been using the program for months on various XP based systems in work and ive never had an issue. it is fully XP compliant.

personally I would backup important files (if you havent already) to cd... then just reformat (to also save the money of buying PM7) and install the operating system from fresh. its not as time consuming as you think and you will be assured you are getting a fresh file structure.

[digitalwanderer]

I had both systems on a dual 98se/XP boot, but got tired of XP since I didn't like it and wanted the room. I just set up my dual-boot to automatically jump into 98se, then reformatted the (virtual) drive that I had XP on. It never gave me a lick of trouble, the only thing was I had to go thru and clean out some XP crap by hand on the other (virtual) drives.

Why make it harder than it needs to be?

[Zardon]

im kind of anal about files laying around, I normally reformat every six months, even if things arent giving many problems. you will normally find a minor performance boost, trust me, its true

[AT_curiousB]

Thank you for your replys gentlemen.

On reflection, I think I will take your advice Zardon, and just reformat, then do a clean install, cause as you say no conflicts result from that path.

Good to hear from ya DW, I remember your posts regarding XP and your experiences.

Can I also add that this forum is just spot on, from top to toe a welcome and valuable resource, my thanks to all who have made it possible.

[Zardon]

hey my pleasure, yes there is a good bunch of guys in here, some really knowledgable and helpful people ..... do keep in touch and let us know how the changeover goes, and oh yeah, good luck

Peace. Z.

[Bartman]

You can remove the dual boot in XP bud....just right click on my computer select propeties....go to advance .....in start up and recovery....In there u can stop the dual boot and keep drive c:........the system will then just boot-up in XP..



HTH


Bartman