How can i safely delete the system partition ?

I have 2 partitions right now c: and e:, well the c: partition is unbootable too, must have become corrupt for some reason. This happened before so i deleted the c: partition but couldnt boot to e: i got a message after deleting the c:(from within windows) that i had to alter the boot.ini to allow for booting to e: well i ignored this at the time and hence problems.

So how would i edit the boot.ini ?

Put your windowsME boot disk in.(and pray you dont have NTFS partitions) Then once in DOS type "edit boot.ini" Then just replace the hda part(1) with hda part(3).

So here is what the boot.ini for you should look like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

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This is the boot.ini for windows xp pro...Boot.ini's are different for every OS.

Well lol.. i only have 2 partitions , c and e, they are both on NTFS, i am using win xp pro, and dont have a floppy drive. :bigyello:

go to a friends and make a bootable cd. go here: www.bootdisk.com and download the bootable CD. Well sucky? You need to also create a boot disk using NTFS DOS Pro. Then Take the *.exe and burn it to a cd. After that yoiu need to mount the NTFS drive and then edit the .ini file.

Contents of the CD:
NTFSDOS Bootable CD

Its a lot easier to just put the HDD into a Windows XP machine :)

If you are going to alter the boot.ini do not forget to change the read only flag before you do the altering, then change it back after. If you keep it read only it will do nothing...:(

Maybe a stupid idea, but try booting from your XP cd, then choose repair bla bla. THat should fix your problem. And it would have been smater if you didn't erease the C-partition, but opend a command-prompt and typed fdisk /mdr.......

I think you;ve got the wrong end of the stick. This happened previously and now its happened again. I can boot to the e: drive fine at the moment but not the c:, i have XP on both partitions. I just want to delete c: to free up some space. I can delete it fine from within windows but unless i make some alterations i wont be able to boot back up to e: .

Check show system files in the folder options dialog and when you delete, don't delete boot.ini in the root of C:.