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Q. How can I stop the computer from offering me a choice at startup as to which Operating System to boot to.

I have two hard drives one fixed and one removable. The fixed drive had Win XP pro on it and I wanted to install a Second Operating System on the removable drive. The fixed drive is the C drive and the removable drive is the E drive.

The process did not fully complete on the e drive and said there was a file missing. I also told it to install the op system on the e drive during the Win XP set up.
 

Now when I boot into windows even with the removable drive out it gives an option which op system to boot from and the screen is very fast and I have to choose very quickly.
 

The option that boots which was the op system on the hard drive that is fixed and not removable. What I want to do is to remove this second option that is offered at start up as it is there when the removable drive is out. I have to deduce from this that something has been put on the hard drive that is fixed to say there is two op systems. I was putting Win XP on the removable drive to then take this drive and use it on another pc I have.  How can I stop the computer from offering me a choice at start up as my intention was not to have two op systems on the same pc. I hope you understand what I am trying to say. Basically as far as I can deduce is that there has been some file downloaded on the hard drive some where to say there is now two op systems on my pc even when one of the drives is removed.

A. The boot menu that prompts you for which operating system to log into is built based on information in the boot.ini file, which is located in the C: directory.  However, it is best to not directly edit the boot.ini file.  There is a utility that you can use to do what you need to do.  The first thing that you should do, though, is to make a backup of the boot.ini file, just in case something goes wrong while you are trying to go through these steps.

As mentioned previously, the boot.ini file is located in the C: directory.  If you cannot see it there from within Windows Explorer, then you will need to make sure that you have set your Folder Options view settings to show hidden files and to not hide protected system files.  If you still do not see the boot.ini file, let me know and I will help you find it.

Click on the Start menu and select the "Run..." option. Type "cmd" and hit enter. In the Command Prompt (DOS) window that comes up, type "bootcfg /query".  This will give you the current boot.ini information.  Make note of the Boot entry ID(s).  Type "bootcfg /delete /ID x", where "x" is replaced with the Boot entry ID for the entry that points to the Windows installation that you want to remove.

If you cannot figure out which installation is the one you want to remove, then look to the "default:" setting under the "Boot Loader Settings" section.  This will tell you which of the installations is selected by default when you first see the menu.  So, if you have to select the option that is not selected when the menu comes up, then delete the default installation.  If you just have to hit enter when the menu comes up, then delete the installation that is not the default one.

If anything goes wrong during these steps, replace the boot.ini file with the copy you took of the file at the beginning. Then try the steps again.

Let me know if you need anything else.

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