Help with Windows XP problem

I was going to reinstall windows over a current installation of it. I lost power to the computer during this process. It still works and everything, but now when I boot up it ask me if I want to boot using my previous xp or from the setup. I would redo it, but I lost my windows disc.

Is there anyway I can delete this attempt to install windows so that it automatically just boots up the OS instead of the setup? I tried a partition manager because I though it might work, but I don't see a separate partition that is not my system partition.


thanks for the help

 

Another thought is that you may have started a parallel installation on the same partition.
Go ahead and open your boot.ini file in Notepad and then got to the edit menu and Select All then right click the highlighted text and paste it in a post here at MG. We can take a look at it to see if the installation files are in a separate folder and thus easily removed. Even if they are not, the boot.ini file can probably be edited to remove the choice at startup.

To open boot.ini in Notepad:

 

Thank you so much you are absolutely right. I am going to post the text in a quote. I am mostly sure what to remove, but I am unsure of the syntax so I will wait until someone confirms that for me.

 

I'm not certain about deleting the folder with the installation files. There are two ways to edit the boot.ini to remove the choice.

The first would just change the default to the working XP with a timeout of 3 seconds before it loads XP. The second removes the choice of going into the failed installation all together. I think I would go with the second choice since the installation is doing you no good.

As far as removing the installation files. After editing the boot.ini and being sure things are working OK, you could rename the folder C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT to something else and see if that causes any problems. It probably won't. So if no problems you can then delete the folder altogether. You may have to show hidden or system files to find that folder to rename. In any explorer window go to Tools>Folder Options>View tab then tick the circle for Show Hidden files and also uncheck the box for Hide Protected Operating System files.

You might want to at least right-click that folder and select Properties to get its size. If it is very small you may want to leave it. If it is several 100mb then deleting may be something you want to do. Before deleting it, check back or google it, so we can be sure that it only contains temporary installation files. I'll' google it later tonight and post back.

 

thank you for all of your help.

 

I'll stick by my last post. The C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT folder can be safely deleted. Renaming it first to something like C:\$WIN_NT$.~BTold would be one extra step, if you have concerns, but it is unnecessary from everything I have read.

It is probably not that large a folder but you may want to delete it for tidiness. It is not a problem to leave it there.

Editing the boot.ini will be sufficient to take the choice of OS from the boot menu which is what you originally asked.