Two instances of XP - how to remove one

The brother managed to remove the ntoskrl (sp) file from his laptop, not sure how he did it, but the system was completely dead, could only get into bios and even at that couldn't figure out how to start up in safe mode. He figured he could get the file from his XP Home version CD, but he installed the whole OS again, in a different directory. When he now powers on, it gives him the option to select which instance of the OS to run, he runs he work version and it boots up fine. He now wants to remove the Home version of XP, is this possible? The ntoskrn file is located in the system32 directory of both directories. Thanks

I suggest backing up what data & stuff he needs from the PC, format the hard disk & reinstall. I have heard bad things about installing MS o/s's over existing versions.

If you wish to risk it...here it is.

Right click My-computer -> choose Manage -> Select disk Management
Right click drive where 2nd operating system resides and select Format.

This will wipe everything on that drive.

previous post is best way to go...

With BlueSpud all the way on this one. My brother-in-law did the same thing a couple of years ago (running Win2K, not XP) and, after wasting a full day trying to fix the problem, I eventually threw my hat at it, got him to stand at my shoulder and direct me to whatever he really, really needed to back up, did so, and then did a complete reformat/reinstall.

I'm not saying this is your only option — said bro-in-law just happened to have a really "sick" PC, with all sorts of other performance problems (largely picked up from that nasty Interweb thingy...) — but it really gave his PC a "new lease on life" at a moment when he'd been thinking of "upgrading"...

Thanks folks, I will probably need to 'attend' to him during the reformat of the HDD, as he is a bit of a nervous nelly!

The XP install gives the option to delete the partition and to reformat the drive


Use the NTFS format option.