How to remove W2K?

I have an ancient (truly antique) desktop machine which was running W98 at an acceptable speed. I thought it a good idea to install a W2K update on it (with hindsight a stupid idea, I know, but I AM a newbie, and we all make mistakes!)

It seems I now have both a W98 and W2K running on the desktop which makes it astoundingly slllllllllllllllooooooowwww!

I presume that since at startup a menu asks me whether I want to run:

1. Windows 2000 or
2. Windows,

that I have accidentally created a second partition when I thought I was 'upgrading' to W2K and that this second partition runs a different OS to the first partition?.

so i have two questions:

a) How do I get rid of a disk partition (if that's indeed what I have created???)
b) uninstall the W2K (which can't really run on such an outdated piece of hardware anyway) and get my desktop back to its original One hard disk, one OS (i.e.98) state?

Your help is very much appreciated

 

Three questions: Can you boot to "Windows" and SEE the drive letter W2K is in?
Can you boot to "Windows 2000" and SEE the drive Win 98 is on?
How are you with FDISK?

 

need more help

...er...when I boot into Windows and use Windows explorer, I can only see floppy Drive A:, one harddisk Drive C: (current) and CD drive D:

Does that mean I do not have a partition?

Regarding fdisk, I have never used it (I presume it is some kind of formatting command? Do I have to create a bootdisk floppy before I reformat (if so, how do I do that to ensure that all my critical drivers, especially the floppy, video and CD rom drivers) are saved and reloaded next time I use a bootable disk?)

Is there a way I can uninstall my mistake (i.e. the W2K) without reformatting? and reclaim the space?

 

Gee, it's great when somebuddy like MA shows up and saves me a lot of typing!

So. What MA said. Now, if you have any questions, fire away.

You can't see the 2000 partition because it's NTFS by default, and your FAT32 Win98 Explorer can't see NTFS drives. That means you can't simply use the Format command switch on the 2000 Drive from Win 98.

But ... you can get a great partition manager, as MA suggested, or you can delete the 2000 partition (and all of 2000 with it) and save the Win98 partition exactly as it was -- with FDISK. But that's a touch harder. Cheaper, but a little harder.

Wanna try FDISK? We'll help.

 

Big thanks MA & Wisewiz - let's use FDISK

MA & Wisewiz, thanks - both of you.

I've only been posting on this board for a few days, but have learned many great things already! I hope that at some stage I too will have some answers to contribute (so far I seem to be mostly on the question side!)

I would like to delete the W2K partition (together with the W2K OS) using fdisk (assuming it does not touch my W98 of course!). Fire away guys - tell me how to use FDISK !

 

Don't worry Wodnik. I had similar Fdisk problems a couple of weeks ago and these guys were VERY patient and helpful. They talked me thru the whole thing. Your in good hands here.

 

wodnik,

Fine. But this is going to take a few minutes of typing and copy-pasting, and I've got a litlle real life to take care of first, so I'll be back (with any luck) in a short while.

(Anybody else is welcome to jump in here and do the FDISK instructions for wodnik, of course, but I'm not terrriffffically optimistic about that happening!)

 

Wisewiz thanks

I await your return Wisewiz! ...and a lesson in FDISK

Cheers

 

*****
First, you need a boot floppy. A boot floppy is a floppy disk that contains enough programming to run your computer all by itself, and do some pretty fancy other stuff as well.

Go to this address (click this link)

Download the one that says Win98 OEM or the one that says Win98 SE OEM. (Yes, that's the one I want you to use. I know it, I trust it, and I know it works the right ways.) It's an executable file. When you have it, put a brand new floppy in your A: drive and then double-click the executable file you just downloaded. It will write all of the necessary files to your floppy.

Now restart the computer. Since there's a boot floppy in A:, the boot stops there.

(If it doesn't, reboot to the BIOS and set it to check a floppy first before it boots to the IDE-0 drive. If you don't know how to do all THAT, come back, and we'll help.)

The first question you're asked by the floppy system is whether you want CD support or not. Choose the WITHOUT CD Support option. Should be 2. Enter.

You'll see the message that it may take a few minutes to start your computer. It may.

When you see the A:> prompt blinking, you're ready to roll. Type FDISK and hit Enter.

The screen fills with words. Read 'em if you wish, but they're from another era. You don't really have the choice of saying No at this point, so say Yes by just hitting Enter.

A menu appears with 4 items in it. (It would have 5 items if there were more than one HD mounted in the machine.)

Choose the menu option that says Display partition information, and hit Enter. It should list two partitions. One will be a Primary partition, and it will probably be Active. All of that info is right there in one line. The second line lists the info on the second partition. The second partition contains a logical drive. That's where 2000 is hiding from 98. The first line will say the file system is FAT32. The second line will say the file system is NTFS (or it might say nothing under file system). At the bottom of the screen, you'll be asked whether you want to display the logical drive information. Type Y for Yes, Enter, and you'll see the info display. It will show a drive letter, and tell you that the Usage is 100%. Make a note of the drive letter.

OK, so you now know that you have two partitions, a primary and an extended, and the extended has a logical drive in it that uses all of the available space in the extended partition.

(If you discover something entirely different from all that, use Esc until you get to the You Must Restart message, hit OK, and at the A:> prompt, hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, snatch the floppy out of the drive so that the machine will boot normally, and come back to the forum and report. The rest of this assumes you found what I expect you will find.)

Hit your Esc key. Hit it again to get back to the 4-item menu.

The menu is back. Choose Delete Partition or Logical DOS Drive. Enter. Choose Delete Logical DOS Drive(s) in the Extended DOS Partition. Enter. Type in the letter of the drive you made a note of a moment ago. You have to type the Volume Label into a pair of brackets [ ]. It's on that same screen a little closer to the top of the screen, under Volume Label. Enter. If your partition doesn’t have a volume label then leave this blank and press Enter. You get asked to confirm all this in a few ways because this process destroys the logical drive, and all of the data on it becomes irretrievable. Do what you're told to do, and say Y (Yes) when asked if you really want to do this.

It'll tell you the logical drive has been deleted.

OK, so you've deleted the Logical drive in the Extended partition (and 2000 is gone completely),
but the second partition is still there, and the space on your HD that is in that partition is useless unless you make it a logical drive, so you might as well create a new logical drive in that partition and use it for storage or whatever.

(You can re-partition the whole HD with a first-class partition manager, and make the whole drive a single partition again, but you can't do that with FDISK without destroying your Win 98 installation first.)

Use Esc to get back to the menu, and choose Create DOS Partition or Logical Disk Drive, and Create a Logical Disk Drive in the Extended partition. Choose to use 100% of the available space in the extended partition when it asks. Do NOT choose to make anything Active if it happens to ask. It'll tell you the drive letter for the drive. It could be either D: or E:, since you have a CD drive using one letter. Note the logical drive letter. I'll assume it's D:, and the CD drive has been bumped to E:. (But that might not be true, so pay attention.)

Now you use Esc to get back to the main menu and Esc again to exit FDISK, and you'll be told you MUST restart the computer and you say OK and you'll be returned to the A:> prompt.

When you see the A:> prompt blinking, use Ctrl-Alt-Delete to reboot. But leave the boot floppy in the drive. The reboot will stop at the floppy again. Choose without CD support again. When you see the A:> prompt blinking, type

FORMAT D:
(If you were informed that the drive letter is E:, you'll type FORMAT E: -- of course.)

You will be warned and asked to confirm. When it finishes and reports that the drive is formatted, use Ctrl-Alt-Del to launch a reboot, but this time reach over immediately after you hit Ctrl-Alt-Del, and take out the boot floppy.

You should boot (with no questions asked) to Win 98, and you should find that you now have an empty Drive D: on your hard drive (in addition to the C: drive that Win 98 and your programs are on) that you can use as you wish. (Or you can buy Partition Magic, and do anything you wish to change all that.)

Congratulations!