Windows 2003 Server Uninstall

[avalon]

Hi, I recently installed the Windows 2003 Server OS on my server. I previously had Win2k professional installed (It's for a small LAN netwerk). This version is still installed and enabled via a boot menu that (I suppose) is taken care of by Windows 2003 Server. Now what I want to do is uninstall the Windows 2003 Server version and install Windows 2000 Server.
So the main question is :
How do I uninstall Windows 2003 Server leaving me being able to run Windows 2000 Professional without completely formatting my harddrives.

Current configuration :
HD1 : (6GB)
-Red Hat Linux (boot via bootdisk)
-Windows 2000 Professional (boot via win2003 bootmenu)
HD2: (2.1GB)
-Windows 2003 Server (Enterprise Edition)

What I want :
HD1 :
-Red Hat Linux
-Windows 2000 Professional
HD2 :
-Windows 2000 Server

Could I just format HD2, and won't this damage the bootmenu ?

greetz, avalon

[Jerome Henry · Accepted solution]

Well,
It depends on which is master and which slave, that is to say which one have the active master boot record.

If it's HD2, then it'll get erased during format. What you'll need it to set back your MBR on HD1. Many ways to do it. The first and the easiest is to start with your 2k pro CD in recue mode, go to console, and have a fixmbr and fixboot commands on shell. It should work.

Question is why do you boot Linux from bootdisk ? Wouldn't it be easier to set a grub loader in your MBR, so that you can boot any system without floppy ?

If it's HD1, then no problem at all, afeter formating hd2, edit c:\boot.ini and erase references to 2003 (plz refer to
http://forums.itrc.hp.com/cm/QuestionAnswer/1,,0xc95a2d88ce9cd711abdc0090277a778c,00.html

for more on boot.ini).

hth

J

[avalon]

HD1 has my MBR, so I can just format my HD2 and no errors will be given during boot ?

Why no GRUB/LILO bootmenu :
I installed Linux before I installed Win2k, Win2k automaticly overrides the MBR so Linux dissapeared. I never had the time to re??nstall both and I don't want to right now because I've got PHPMySQL running on my win2k and I don't want to loose any data it contains :s Now that i've just done my final exam I might take the time to spend an entire day formatting both harddrives and cleaning my server up a bit, but for now I just want to delete win2003 and install win2k :)

[avalon]

How can I assign points to your answer ? I see the dropdownbox but no button to confirm ?!?!

[avalon]

never mind :)

[Jerome Henry]

It's assigned !
Tkz

Once you have time, post your disk partitions and grub.conf, we'll install it on your HD !

Remember that after formatting, 2003 server boot line won't be valid anymore...

J