removing win98 from dual boot

[jmatrix]

Win98SE and boot.ini on C: drive, WinXP on D: drive. I would like to remove the Win 98 installation on c: drive to free up disk space. How can I do this safely, and what do I do with the boot.ini file located on the c: drive so that Win XP will still load?
Thanks,
Paul

 

[phishhead]

haven't had to try it but just boot using a win98 boot disk and boot to the c:\ format your win98 partition...then reboot with the xp cd and boot to safe mode cmd prompt and type bootcfg/? for options I believe it is bootcfg/f or /fix this will repair the ntloader...or could just do a repair install...then you would have to combine the 2 partitions with partition magic or some prog like that...should work.

 

[Binary]

Well, since I can't figure that one out, probably some others won't either. What you mean to say is to boot with the WinXP CD, press F10 and thus go to the Recovery Console. There you can fix the bootfiles by issuing the command bootfix.
The method is described here: support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;Q314058. Apart from that, when you do have Partition Magic available, I would first join the two partition and then do the fixboot trick. Otherwise the referrals in boot.ini do not match when the partitions are changed. Also the result must be a primary partition, otherwise WinXP won't boot.
A safer way is to just remove everything from the C-partition except: boot.ini, bootsect.dos, ntldr and ntdetect.com. That way you do not have to juggle partitions around.