windows xp duplicate

[dangermouse]

there was a problem with my computer so i tried to reinstall windows xp using the recovery disk... however rather then uninstalling then reinstalling windows xp it simply seemed to create another copy of windows xp over the top... can anyone help me with why this happened and what i should do now?

 

[johnb35]

Back up any data you need saved and do a fresh installation at this point, making sure you delete existing partion and recreate them and then reinstall. This is usually called a destructive restore according to the system recovery disks or program used to restore the operating system.

 

[tlarkin]

Right click on my computer and select properties. Then go to the advanced tab, and click on the start up and recovery tab. There will be a button that says to edit the start up file manually click edit. Click that and it should open your boot.ini file in a text editor. Then just delete the extra entry that is on there and you will no longer have those two options. Your boot.ini file should look like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

 

[mep916]

Yeah, if you're referring to multiple entires in the boot menu, follow tlarkin's steps.