Member Avatar for gfrost

I just formatted and reinstalled Windows XP Home on my PC. after doing this i have an annoying little prompt that pops up as it is booting up. It asks me to choose an operating system to load. My choices are:
Windows XP Home
Windows XP Home
if i choose the first one...it runs fine...if i choose the second one it bombs out and gives me the choice again. really i only have one operating system on the PC and i am not even sure why it is going to this prompt. it is really just an inconvenience and everything is working just fine except for it going to this screen on the initial boot each time.
does anyone know how to disable this prompt or get around this instead of having to hit enter or wait the 30 seconds...its just annoying and i am anal....
thanks
Gfrost

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by vigneshvh

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A clean reinstall that still shows two identical "Windows XP Home" boot choices usually means the installer left or detected a second Windows instance (or leftover boot data) and preserved it in the boot configuration. confirmed the problem was solved by removing the extra entry as suggested, but the duplicate is a symptom worth understanding so it does not recur.

Common causes: a leftover Windows folder on another partition or second drive, an aborted/partial install, a cloned image, or the system/boot files ending up on a different (still-active) partition. The non-working menu entry typically points at a Windows installation that no longer exists in the expected location, which is why one choice boots and the other fails.

Checks and safer fixes that complement the boot-entry edit: inspect the disk layout to see whether another partition or disk still contains a Windows directory and which partition is marked as the active “system” partition; use the System Configuration utility (msconfig) to review and change default/timeout settings without hand-editing files; and, if the boot sector or configuration needs repair, use the Recovery Console tools from the XP media. Commands commonly used from the Recovery Console include:

bootcfg /rebuild
fixboot
fixmbr

Back up important data before running low-level repairs.

For future installs, deleting old partitions and creating a fresh partition during Setup (after backing up data) prevents leftover boot entries. Credit to for the quick fix, to for reinstall cautions, and to for pointing to Microsoft’s KB guidance — the immediate symptom is easy to remove, but tracing the root cause stops repeats.

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Member Avatar for dos_centavos

I just formatted and reinstalled Windows XP Home on my PC. after doing this i have an annoying little prompt that pops up as it is booting up. It asks me to choose an operating system to load. My choices are:
Windows XP Home
Windows XP Home
if i choose the first one...it runs fine...if i choose the second one it bombs out and gives me the choice again. really i only have one operating system on the PC and i am not even sure why it is going to this prompt. it is really just an inconvenience and everything is working just fine except for it going to this screen on the initial boot each time.
does anyone know how to disable this prompt or get around this instead of having to hit enter or wait the 30 seconds...its just annoying and i am anal....
thanks
Gfrost

On the desktop highlight My Computer right click and choose properties from the drop down menu.
Click on the advanced tab
Click on Startup and Recovery Settings
Click on Edit

This will open up the boot.ini file NotePad - C:\boot.ini
Delete the offending line under the [Operating Systems] section and save the file down.
Make sure you delete the right one otherwise you'll find yourself reinstalling Windows XP

Member Avatar for gfrost

thanks i will give that a try.
I appreciate your assistance.
Gfrost

Member Avatar for vigneshvh

hai
from your scrap i can understand that after formating you installed windows home edition but the way of installation way of installing was not proper so just use this installation for some time if any problems are shown while doing any task please reinstall the os

Member Avatar for gfrost

Thank you all that answered but Dos Centavos you are right on the money...that fixed my problem and i am happy now.
Thanks again and good luck to all.
Gfrost

Member Avatar for dos_centavos

Thank you all that answered but Dos Centavos you are right on the money...that fixed my problem and i am happy now.
Thanks again and good luck to all.
Gfrost

Gfrost you're welcome - however I wouldn't dismiss vigneshvh's observation. In your original post you stated you had formatted the drive and installed XP (referred to as a clean install). If this were true you would not have had the multiple entries in the boot.ini file.

Member Avatar for gfrost

I installed the windows XP CD and went through the steps and cleared off several partitioned drives and created one drive and formatted it and then installed WinXP Home. So everything should have been gone at that point. Any clue?

Member Avatar for dos_centavos

I installed the windows XP CD and went through the steps and cleared off several partitioned drives and created one drive and formatted it and then installed WinXP Home. So everything should have been gone at that point. Any clue?

One possibility is an incomplete or aborted install of WindowsXP. IE the original installation failed and you started over without reformatting the drive.

Member Avatar for vigneshvh

ok i think you did windows xp installation going through the following procedures
1.restart your system
2.change the bootsequence in to cd rom
3.restart system
4.insert a bootable windows xp cd
5.system start booting into cd and starts functioning
6.it ask which drive we want to install windows xp
7.select c drive
8.then it start preparing for formating
9.after formating it starts installing the os
this is the actual way of installing windows xp your system is not installed with any os
if you had gone through these all procedures and did all properflly then no problem

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