Quick question maybe someone can be of some help! i purchased a laptop from a guy and was given a real good price for it, only problem is that it has two operating systems installed. One is XP (the one im using) and the other is vista (i think) but it is in Chinese! MY question is how do i uninstall the Chinese OP that i am not using? or can i even do that without knowing what it says? The Chinese vista is taking up needed space isnt it?
When you start the computer, is there the option to choose between XP and Vista (Chinese) or does it go straight to XP?
My guess is that the Chinese XP is on a separate partition. You should be able to remove that partition and then add it back to your regular Vista partition. At least that is how I did it when I had Windows XP and Korean Windows XP installed.
I suspect if it is something you would be using frequently it would be worthwhile. I had to have Korean XP in order to access a Korean site during "problem" times so it was more of a safeguard than an everyday thing for me. I just rebooted and used the "choose OS" option. I used Partition Magic to manipulate the partitions. I THINK Vista has an easier way to handle the partitions but I haven't looked at that for a while.
I think you have it backwards in NateNate's case. I think his XP is in English, and his Vista is in Chinese. But I do agree they are most likely on two different partitions. All you have to do is go into XP, go to the disk manager (something like control panel -> administrative tools -> computer management -> disk manager...I don't have XP anymore so I'm not sure if that's totally correct). You should have the ability to delete the partition that has Vista on it (MAKE SURE THIS IS THE PARTITION W/ VISTA AND NOT XP...although I don't think it will let you delete the partition you are using anyways). Then you can merge the deleted/clean partition w/ the XP partition. Don't go to Geek Squad, it's a waste of money for what you need to do.
If there is nothing on the laptop disk that you need AND the seller gave you all the accompanying software, I would suggest simply reformatting the HD and reloading Windows XP. Booting from the Windows XP disk (or system recovery disk) should give you the option of doing that. If you want to save any existing data, you can check to see if there is another disk partition with Chinese Vista on it. Go to: Start->Control Panel->Admin Tools->Computer Mgmnt->Storage->Disk Mgmnt From there you may be able to see if/where the Chinese Vista is installed. You MAY be able to simply right click and format that partition and then add that partition back to your normal "C:" partition. I would feel comfortable doing this with my PC, but if you are not comfortable doing so, you need to take it to someone who is. Screwing this up COULD destroy all of the data on the laptop.
Kinda lost.....i got the first part but how would i merge it? also im confused because there are three drives: C: has 29 gb space D: has 39 gb space and E has 43 gb space. why are they separate like that?
The previous owner must have split the hard drive into three partitions. One for XP, one for Vista, and one for just storing more files. A few questions: -Which partition is XP installed on? Hopefully it's C. -Which partition is Vista installed on? Hopefully not C. -Do you currently store any of your files on the partition that does not have XP or Vista? Ideally you answered yes to the first 2 questions, and no to the last one. You should then format the D and E drives. Next, you should be able to right click on the C drive in disk manager and click 'extend drive'. It should give you the ability to merge with D. Afterwards you'll have a bigger C drive and the E will now be the D drive. Than you can extend your drive again. (I don't have XP now, so that's all from memory, but I'm sure that's pretty close to what you have to do). If you answered yes to the third question, then you should copy your data to the C drive before any formatting, otherwise that data will be lost. If you answered no to any of the first two questions, well it gets a bit complicated and the ideal situation would be to start from scratch, do a total backup of your stuff, reformat the entire hard drive, and reinstall XP like bobrek said.
thanks for the help but im too much of a wus to do that in fear i may mess something up! I wanna say yes to the first two and for sure no to the third but the only problem is it seems i have the same things on both C and D but i cant distinguish the chinese from the english windows on c and d.
it can't be done without a format, vista has its own bootloader and removing vista removes the bootloader. if you remove vista you would then have to go in an reinstate the XP bootloader. Not an easy task, not at all.
if you do that your PC will no longer boot an operating system. Essentially it's like having a device with no on/off switch. Please, don't do this, you will lose everything. It doesn't matter whether Vista is installed on C or D, those are just meaningless letter assignments that can be easily changed. Essentially your bootloader is on the Vista partition no matter what. The best tutorial would be on how to repair a damaged XP bootloader. It would be the same way if you installed linux or mac os, essentially one OS takes the booting duties. In his case XP will.
Good call. I totally forgot about Vista's new bootloader implementation. I mentioned the drive letters in presuming it was a typical install and for the sake of making it easier to describe the situation. There are indeed ways to get around this, but are more of a 'hack' instead of going through the normal tools.
if you do decide to delete the vista partition and you have an XP cdrom this is the repair: go to drive manager and delete the partion space for vista. then after that, extend the partition across where vista used to be (like the previous post), then plop in the CD and follow this repair method: http://www.techsupersite.com/repair_xp_boot_loader.html that will then put XP back on boot duties.
your gonna laugh but both are windows xp! the sticker on the laptop said says vista but both the english and chinese are xp. thanks
Did the person who sold you the machine provide all of the software that it originally came with? If so, there may be a system restore CD/DVD that allows you to put the laptop back to its factory condition.
yeah, but you can lose critical files, software, things like that. A format is a daunting endeavor. Plus, factory settings are not always optimal. ok, if they are both xp, then it isn't nearly as bad. do the same thing, if you luck out and the bootloader is on the english XP you have no work, if it doesn't boot, simply follow the instruction set from that web cite. OR do a google search about having two versions of XP installed, a lot of people have done this. The only issue you may run into is if there is software on the XP English that is dependant on registries from the XP chinese. The probability of this is like one percent, it's just i thought i'd warn you. To fix it all you'd have to do is reinstall it.
