Having two operating systems in your computer can be fun. You get tired of one and you reboot your computer and switch to another. But what happens when you get tired of one or the other or you simply want to go back to just one? Here's how you remove an operating system when you're done with it.
When you installed the second operating system you had to partition your hard drive or divide the drive into at least 2 sections. This makes removing the one you don't want relatively simple.
1. Boot your computer into the operating system you want to keep.
2. Make sure all your files are backed up from all partitions. Heaven forbid something happens and you end up starting over entirely. Make sure you have a way to install an operating system, preferably the one you want to keep, in case you end up formatting the entire hard drive.
3. Assuming you are in some version of Windows, you'll be able to go to the disk manager and use it to format the partition the other operating system is on. Remember that when you format you erase everything. If it wasn't backed up it's been deleted permanently. To get to the Disk Manager go into your Start Menu and click on the Control Panel. Go into System and Security and then into the Administrative Tools. From there you will find the Computer Management or Disk Management Tools. Right click and format the correct drive. Fortunately it won't let you format the drive you're using. If you make a mistake doing this, the worst thing that will happen is you will format your backup drive. If the drive is being used as storage space after, format it as NTFS, which will be the same as your Windows drive.
4. As for the boot loader that allowed you to pick between operating systems, you may find you need to put in the disk of the remaining operating system and use bootrec.exe to fix the boot loader. Another option is to go to "run" in the Start Menu, type "msconfig", go to the "Boot Tab" and delete the entry you no longer need. There are actually a number of ways to remove unneeded entries from the boot loader, these are just two ways you can use.
5. If you have multiple empty partitions at this point you can use the Disk Manager to merge some of those empty partitions into one bigger partition. You could also install an entirely different operating system at this point. The choice is yours.
This is actually easier to do than formatting and installing was originally. Print this out to help you along the way. Remember not to be afraid of this process. It's fun to play and try new things. As long as you have your files backed up you'll be alright. Have fun!
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