My PC thinks I have two copies of Windows installed?

When my computer boots up, it gets past the reading and verifying of the computers components fine and when it gets to the reading of the hard drive to launch a platform (windows xp) it asks me which windows would I like to load? So I have gathered that the computer thinks i have two Windows XP's installed. But the twist is that one is corrupt... as in, it cannot find the system32 file to run the windows platform, while the other version of Windows runs just fine.

I have tried to sort this out myself and have been looking for the file that is telling my computer there are two Windows XP's installed but have not succeeded. Can you help?

Dave's Answer:

This one baffled me too, so I asked my colleague and friend Jim Boyce (author of tons of great computer books, among other things) and here's his response to you:

Sounds like your computer's boot.ini file is configured with multiple operating system entries, and apparently, one is not configured correctly. How did this happen? It could be from an incomplete or aborted Windows installation or someone messing around with the boot.ini file. In any case, you can edit the boot.ini file to delete the incorrect entry.

The first step is to determine which is the correct, functioning one. Boot the system and note the text that the boot menu offers you, or the order in which they are displayed (is the first one in the list the working copy or is it the second?)

Next, boot Windows to the working copy and follow these steps:

Open My Computer and choose Tools, Folder Options.
Click the View tab, place a check beside Show hidden files and folders, and click OK.
Open drive C and look for the file boot.ini.
Right-click boot.ini and choose Properties.
Clear the Read-only check box and click OK.
Click Start, All Programs, Accessories, Notepad.
In Notepad, open boot.ini from drive C. Look in the [operating systems] section. There should be two entries, one for each of the boot options offered by the boot menu.

Let's add some text to each one to help you better identify them during boot so you can verify which is working and which is not.
Click in the text that is enclosed in quotes and add a descriptor, like WORKS or DOESN'T WORK. Make sure you add this text somewhere inside the two quotes.
Save the file and restart the computer. At boot, choose the entry that includes WORKS in the operating system description.
If the system boots properly, you now know that the entry with DOESN'T WORK in its description is the one to delete. Open boot.ini in Notepad again, delete the entire line (it will probably start with the word multi or scsi), and save the file
Reboot to make sure the system boots normally.

That should give you the information you need to track down this problem.

Many thanks to Jim Boyce for his splendid, precise help with this problem.

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Categorized: Windows PC Help (Article 4253, Written by Dave Taylor)
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Reader Comments To Date: 24

Mic Nelson said, on November 2, 2005 9:24 AM:

There is an additional item that will cause that reaction. As a tech, I can not stress the importance of a security wipe. There are programs out there that will provide this feature. After getting rid of partition viruses, I have noticed the double entry of windows after a dump and reload. If I did NOT do a security wipe, then I get the double entry. I assume that with a security wipe, the boot.ini is blanked also, so I get a totally clean install. I have to assume that without the security wipe, the windows reinstall just writes over the old boot.ini and the reference to the partition virus is left in, even though you deleted the partition virus itself.

Just a heads up.

Makou said, on May 3, 2007 9:15 AM:

I know this is an old article but it's these kind of helpful guides that make life a bit easier when working out windows problems. Just wanted to say thanks because this helped my issue!

Taupe said, on May 5, 2007 4:12 AM:

Hi Dave,
I've had my PC in for repair several times, upon getting it back, the same problem exist, and I'm hoping you can help. My question; My computer turns pages by two or three at a time. When clicking go back, pages then go back by two or three's. When deleting emails, they also are deleted by two or three, then I have to go into recently deleted, and retrieve the ones that should not be there. What can be the problem? In advance Thank You.

Denise Brenneman said, on August 8, 2007 9:16 AM:

I have the same problem as listed above. I tried to follow your instructions, however my pc fails to find the boot.ini file that you mention in the instructions. Do you have any suggestions to help me further?

Sven Lowry said, on September 5, 2007 4:56 AM:

You need to uncheck 'Hide protected operating system files' in the View tab, as well as 'Show hidden files and folders' as stated in the solution

Andy said, on October 28, 2007 2:42 AM:

I've had this problem on my girls PC for months. I just fixed a friends pc with new mobo. installed windows and had 2 OS. Found this and it was fixed straight away.

Many, Many thanks

Andy

anonymous said, on November 23, 2007 2:22 PM:

That way is far too complex. Go to the start menu, go to the run command. Type in msconfig and press ok. Go to the boot.ini tab and click Check All Boot paths. It should pick up the second boot path and offer to delete it or do it automatically (cant remember which).

Lance said, on December 21, 2007 6:07 PM:

Thx for your profesional advice on the boot.ini file. I checked it out and didalso have two operating systems that were installed "windows xp home and proffesional. the xp home did not work so I deleted it. now there is an xp profesional option and a windows default option. the default option also does not ork. However, it is not listed in the boot.ini file. Any ideas of how I can get rid of the default option. to where it just says xp proffesional? Any ideas would be greatly apprcated. thanks in advance.

Carrie said, on February 6, 2008 2:32 PM:

when you said the following below i was not able to enter text where there are quotes so i tried to delete the file that i did not want but it would not let please help me

Click in the text that is enclosed in quotes and add a descriptor, like WORKS or DOESN'T WORK. Make sure you add this text somewhere inside the two quotes.

john griner said, on March 16, 2008 8:33 PM:

i have a comment like lance comment after i deleted the file it add the default opetion and its not in the boot file so i cant delete it how do i fix it please

Carl said, on April 26, 2008 1:14 AM:

"That way is far too complex. Go to the start menu, go to the run command. Type in msconfig and press ok. Go to the boot.ini tab and click Check All Boot paths. It should pick up the second boot path and offer to delete it or do it automatically (cant remember which)."

works simple and perfect! thanks!!

M. A. Khamis said, on August 1, 2008 8:44 AM:

thanks I benefited a lot from your instructions

Rita Walker said, on August 20, 2008 4:44 PM:

I can't beleive someone else had this issue. And am astonished that I was able to apply this and fix my own computer.

Many thanks to people like you who are there to help.

Thank you so very much.

Steven Anthony said, on October 11, 2008 1:31 PM:

Complete note on how computer thinks.And also with images

Andre said, on November 5, 2008 2:31 AM:

I had the same trouble:
Doing the same with boot.ini i just changed the assigned number for the windows version (2) or (3) at DEFAULT (#)

Yash said, on May 28, 2009 4:28 AM:

Heyy Dave,
Thanx a lot. Your article helped me a lot..
I had installed service pace 2 a long time ago on c:
Now i installed service pack 3 in e:
n then due to some probs i formatted e:
but it showed the problem during boot as stated aove.
But ur advice hepled.
thnx.

Naveen kumar said, on October 4, 2009 10:36 AM:

Hai Dave,
Hats off to you boss, you a genious.I had this same issue of multiple copies of OS XP installed on my HDD it was so irritating to see that massage "Disk read error" Press Alt+ctrl+Delet to restart.
Thank god i found your website, My problem is fixed now, I am so happy I will guide people to this site if they have any problem in there PC.

Really hats off once again and thank u so much may god give you fulll of health and wealth to help people like US.

THANK YOU SO MUCH DAVE ONCE AGAIN. :) :) :)

Odd said, on February 1, 2010 6:55 PM:

Thanks a lot! This helped me out. Amazing that after formatting the only HD in the computer and resinstalling Win XP, it still thought there was two copies of Windows installed, lol.

amit sharma said, on September 7, 2010 10:44 AM:

hello friends i had installed 2 windows xp and 7 both were working gud but i decided to upgrade from xp2 to xp3 but error occured so i decided to remove extra files from my c drive which was containing xp2 but unfortunately i deleted some files so my xp windows stopped working but 7 worked properly so i repaired xp from my xp2 cd but now after repairing the selection option on startup is not coming so i am not able to use my windows 7 plz help me how can i get selection option so that i can use both windows plz heeellllpppppppp meeeeeeeee!!!!!!!

i wil b very thankfulll

Bonnie said, on September 13, 2011 10:18 PM:

Your website is great and as others have said; you are a genius. I'm truly thankful there are people such as you that helps and doesn't try to drain a person's pocketbook. As soon as I have a little extra I will send a small donation.
My problem is my computer [upon shutdown] reboots and I can't shut it down. Does have Win XP and Pro but gives me no trouble on boot-up. Thanks for any help you can offer.
Again, great website. May God bless you and yours for always

Luke said, on November 19, 2011 7:01 PM:

The directions make sense if you're using XP, but what about Windows 7? I have the same issue but two versions of Windows 7 are the issue and the directions you give don't work for that OS. The boot.ini file for instance isn't easy to find. Can you please clarify?

REhan said, on February 12, 2012 6:48 AM:

thanks..v much 4 the trick....it worked..:)))

Anthony said, on March 11, 2012 7:10 PM:

"That way is far too complex. Go to the start menu, go to the run command. Type in msconfig and press ok. Go to the boot.ini tab and click Check All Boot paths. It should pick up the second boot path and offer to delete it or do it automatically (cant remember which)."

Thanks much easy fix! Life saver, it was driving me crazy!

Barry Litchfield said, on March 11, 2012 10:39 PM:

I have a boot.ini file that does bot respond to "checking paths of boot.ini file". Notice comes up that microsoft must close down send or not send. The boot file looks ok with boot loader etc but there is something wrong. Checks out ok with my other xp computer that the wording is right(XP PRO on both). Can you assist. Regards Barry (it boots up ok but have 2 windows startup positions (both defaults) to select from; it defaults to the lower one but wont work. Have to select the top one each time)

I do have a lot to say, and questions of my own for that matter, but first I'd like to say thank you, Dave, for all your helpful information by buying you a cup of coffee!

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

My PC thinks I have two copies of Windows installed?

Reader Comments To Date: 24

I do have a comment, now that you mention it!

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