New reinstal with boot question

[hpharley90]

I just did a Windows XP reinstall on a friends computer.
Everything went great but I have one problem and I don't know how to fix it. I am using no password to sign on.

Every time I start computer instead of going to welcome screen etc. I get a black screen with white writing asking to "please select the operating system to start:"
Then I have two selections.
"Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition"
"Microsoft Windows XP Setup"
At the bottom of the screen it say "For troubleshooting and advanced startup options for Windows, press F8."

And it's always highlighted on "Microsoft Windows XP Setup" when I boot PC which if I don't use the arrow up key fast enough it will start doing a Windows Setup.Blue Screen set up stuff.
I use the arrow up key for "Microsoft Window XP Home Edition" then hit enter and boot up is fine.
I hope I'm not being confusing.
How can I get this to just boot up?

[JohnnyO]

That's strange. Are you sure you removed the setup cd from your cd drive?

[hpharley90]

Oh yes John. Disc is on my bench.
When I mentioned in my other thread that all is fine I thought that would stop after another reboot.

I installed Windows and then I put disc in to install drivers took that out and rebooted. It did the black screen to boot up and everything was fine after booting PC.
But to boot it doesn't seem correct.

[JohnnyO]

I installed Windows and then I put disc in to install drivers took that out and rebooted. It did the black screen to boot up and everything was fine after booting PC.
But to boot it doesn't seem correct.

I'm a bit confused. Everything was fine after reboot, but to boot doesn't seem correct. Can you clarify with more detail?

[hpharley90]

I'm a bit confused.

I can do that well.

I'll try and explain a little clearer. After I did Windows install and drivers I shut off PC. Then I restarted. I got the black screen that I wrote about earlier. I used arrow up key to pick Windows XP Home Edition. I got Welcome screen and went to desk top. Great.
Then I restarted and got black screen to pick again for Setup or Home edition.
Every time I push button to start computer I get the black screen.
If I got a Windows update and I have to restart I get the black screen.
When I start PC I get the Dell logo on monitor and then it goes to the black screen and I pick Home Edition Then it goes through it's normal starting Windows and welcome screen to desk top and then it's normal.
On a restart or just starting PC it should just go to Dell logo monitor then Microsoft logo then Welcome screen.
I get the black screen before any of that.
I hope I'm clearer.
Thanks JohnnyO

[Bobby]

Is there a second partition on the hard drive with a Windows restoration image on it?

I have seen these dual system screens, but usually if in fact there was more than one version of Windows installed on the C: drive.

[Dave McElderry]

hpharley90, try this:

Right-click your My Computer icon, click on Properties, Advanced tab. Under Startup and Recovery click the Settings button. Under System Startup click the Edit button. Notepad will open your boot.ini file. Select and copy everything that's in it and paste it in a reply to this thread so that I can see it.

[JohnnyO]

If there is a second partition you can see the screen you are seeing.

[jackfalbey]

I just installed Vista 64-bit on a separate hard drive in my workstation (just to play around with). So now I have XP Pro on one drive and Vista on another. When I turn on the PC, it goes through POST and then I get a black screen that gives me the choice between "Microsoft Windows Vista" or "Earlier Windows Version". This is normal when 2 operating systems are installed on the same PC.

It sounds to me like your PC thinks there are 2 OSes installed, but that shouldn't have happened from the Dell Windows XP reinstall disc. You might want to post this over at the Dell forums. Someone there may know what's going on.

[hpharley90]

Is there a second partition on the hard drive with a Windows restoration image on it?

Bobby yes the hard drive is partitioned.
Local disc C 110.GB and Local disc D is 40 GB.
Local disc D had a bunch of windows files.
I deleted them all.
The local disc D is clean now and I'm still having same problem.
I restarted a couple of times.

hpharley90, try this:
Right-click your My Computer icon, click on Properties, Advanced tab. Under Startup and Recovery click the Settings button. Under System Startup click the Edit button. Notepad will open your boot.ini file. Select and copy everything that's in it and paste it in a reply to this thread so that I can see it.

[Boot Loader]
Timeout=5
Default=C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT
redirect=usebiosettings
redirectbaudrate=
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
C:\$WIN_NT$.~BT\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows XP Setup"
Dave after I read Bobby's post I deleted those files on local disc D.
Restarted a couple of times then I followed your instructions.
Thanks
Rich

[Dave McElderry]

Follow the instructions to get back into your boot.ini file. You can either edit it to reflect the changes below, or just delete everything and replace all of the lines by copying and pasting the lines below:

[Boot Loader]
Timeout=5
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
redirect=usebiosettings
redirectbaudrate=
[Operating Systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Then save the file, exit out of any open properties windows, and reboot.

[hpharley90]

Dave.
You hit that nail right on the head.
Thank you very much.
That's the first time I've ever worked on those settings.I would never had know about those.
I couldn't have did it without your help.
People like you Dave and all the other wonderful people here are what makes muvipix what it is. The best online community in the known universe.

[Bobby]

Glad to help, and I am fairly sure all will work fine now. But it is still strange where that entry in boot.ini came from...

[Dave McElderry]

Great! Glad it worked. Now for the bad news. Something didn't go quite right during the reinstall, or this wouldn't have happened. Although it won't hurt a thing to run the system this way, there apparently are XP setup files that are taking up space on the hard drive. How many, or what, I have no way of knowing. If disk space isn't a problem he can probably run forever and never know it. But if he's low on disk space...

The way to solve this correctly would be to re-do the reinstall, but I know that's not what you want to hear.

[hpharley90]

The way to solve this correctly would be to re-do the reinstall, but I know that's not what you want to hear.

I'll let my friend know what you told me. But I don't for see a problem. I'll do a reinstall if he wants. Now that I did it once the second time would be no problem.
He also has 140GB of space and realistically he'll only use maybe 20GB if he doesn't screw it up before he uses that much space.

I have an idea what might of happened during installation.
My fault.