Where is my operation system

[walterjprice8]

I have 4 operation system on hard drive but do not know witch is witch???
Walter Price

[jscheuer1]

Where is my operation system

The dog ate it.

Seriously though, we need more information. But the best strategy would be to ask whoever it was who set it up for you, or someone with the same setup. I say this because there are so many ways this could be done. I have two - Win 7 and Win XP. And could add more, at least theoretically via the virtual machine used for the XP one. Win 7 is the main OS, the one the machine boots to. Generally that's what you would have too - whatever the main OS is will (as long as you do nothing during the boot process) boot when the machine is turned on. However, some multiple OS systems will boot into whatever the last OS in use was.

Do you have any idea what OS's these are that you have on the computer? Who put them there?

[djr33]

Is this a serious question? The term is "operating system" not "operation system", and if you are going to do anything with them, you need to have some experience. If not, you might lose all of your files. If the basics are confusing, then I must recommend that you hire a professional to help you fix your computer.

Hard drives contain files (and folders). Some of those files are operating systems. If it's Windows, then you will find a folder named "Windows", although the entire file structure will be outside of that folder as well.

What are you doing and what files do you want to save/copy or modify?

Why do you have 4 OSs on your computer, and what do you want to do with them?

How do you want to identify the operating systems? The only differences will be in what files exist in each and how they are configured, so you would need to look at the files to see which ones are relevant. Or you could look at the configuration (such as in BIOS) to see which one loads by default.

But again, if you don't understand this, then you need to ask a professional for help, or ask whoever installed everything on the computer in the first place.


If you don't want anything on the computer (you will erase everything), then you can install a new operating system and format the hard drive. That will erase everything (all of the operating systems) and make it like a brand new computer. Note that you want to format the whole disk, not just one partition.