Having troubles with xp/vista

Hi there. I am trying to get a dual boot of xp and vista to work.

Started off with 2 fresh drives, intsalled XP on one, did all my updates then installed Vista on the other and have done all my updates.

I have followed the guide so far and I have gotten it to where I can choose between loading vista or xp, vista works no problems, to begin with when I selected XP the computer would just reboot, then after some troubleshooting it would load but then I would get the ntldr is missing. Fixed that up and now i Just get a blank screen after selecting xp.

I have the NTDETECT in my root directory with the ntldr, ive got the boot.ini there as well set-up as follows

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect

also in there is a BOOTSECT file which has

A disk read error occurred
BOOTMGR is missing
BOOTMGR is compressed
Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart

and a whole lot of gibberish in it.

and finally here is my debug mode from BCD

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {3ed7e0d1-fa0a-11dd-8f44-81488a95add0}
displayorder {3ed7e0d1-fa0a-11dd-8f44-81488a95add0}
{74cee767-fa16-11dd-90af-002215896fc6}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 30
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {3ed7e0d1-fa0a-11dd-8f44-81488a95add0}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {3ed7e0d2-fa0a-11dd-8f44-81488a95add0}
nx OptIn
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {74cee767-fa16-11dd-90af-002215896fc6}
device partition=C:
path \NTLDR
description Microsoft Windows XP

So if anyone is able to use that information and let me know what im doing wrong, that would be great =)

Or if you need more information let me know what you need and ill try and pull it up for you.

Cheers

Hi Mycal, welcome to NST.
Assuming that when you say "I've got the files in my root", you are referring to the Vista partition root, your problem would appear to be the boot.ini rdisk value.
rdisk(0) is the "system" disk (the booted disk), and you should be pointing to the other disk (where XP is) which is rdisk(1)
If you've got the latest Beta build of EasyBCD 2.0, it'll even create that for you automatically in the "tools" dropdown options. If you edit it by hand instead of letting Easy 2 do it for you, remember to alter it in both lines.

Thank you very much Terry60,

You assume correctly and I have modified the boot file and it now works (This is posted via XP =P).

Thanks alot for the reply. I thought the problem might have been there but trying to run it through my head was making it spin =P

And now ill hopefully be able to play Fallout 3 with out the random crashes associated with Vista.

Happy Gaming.
(You are aware that each time you boot XP, it will destroy your Vista system restore points ?
If you want to keep them, you'll need either to zap the XP registry so that it sees the Vista drive(s) as offline, or use HnS to hide Vista from XP)

I had no idea. I dont really consider that to be a big problem though. Ive only ever used system restore once and that was on XP and it made a bigger mess than I already had. If I ever run into big problems I tend to just keep my data backed up and will format the drive instead and start fresh.

In that case, go into system / security options and turn off system restore on all drives on all systems, and save yourself a lot of unnecessary overhead.
Personally, I love system restore. It was the best part of ME, about the only feature to have been propogated through all subsequent OSs. It's saved my life a number of times (not literally I admit), when I've tried a new piece of software that's borked the system, and a quick "go back 30 minutes" has calmed the earlier feeling of impending doom. (It's the OS equivalent of the "Undo" button)
If you keep it turned on only for the OS drive and any other drive containing apps installed on the OS, and turned off everywhere else (other OSs, data spaces, backup drives etc), it is very reliable.
It's never let me down once.