Help: installed win7 on dual boot, now can't boot xp

jbinbi · #1 January 26th, 2009, 09:32 PM

Have a system with xp and vista using easybcd to manage boot.

Created a new partition, formated, labelled f, installed win7. All went well.

New boot menu has 'old version of windows', 'vista', win7, and 'windows'. Vista and win7 boot ok, but I can't book xp! Which I really need.

All on one drive, C is the boot drive, D is logical, F is primary partition.

I checked the root of C (from vista boot) and I have ntld, ntdetect, and boot.ini, but if i double click on boot.ini, it says access denied, and opens up notepad with a blank file. There is a boot.bak from when I instaled easybcd a long time ago.

I am hoping someone can help. Thank you very much.

These are my setting from easybcd

There are a total of 4 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Earlier Version of Windows
Entry #1
Name: Earlier Version of Windows
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr
Entry #2
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {ffda75a3-d717-11dc-9b20-000ea6f130ab}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #3
Name: Microsoft Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #4
Name: Microsoft Windows
BCD ID: {ffda75a1-d717-11dc-9b20-000ea6f130ab}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

Coolname007 · #2 January 26th, 2009, 09:38 PM

Originally Posted by jbinbi

Have a system with xp and vista using easybcd to manage boot.

Created a new partition, formated, labelled f, installed win7. All went well.

New boot menu has 'old version of windows', 'vista', win7, and 'windows'. Vista and win7 boot ok, but I can't book xp! Which I really need.

All on one drive, C is the boot drive, D is logical, F is primary partition.

I checked the root of C (from vista boot) and I have ntld, ntdetect, and boot.ini, but if i double click on boot.ini, it says access denied, and opens up notepad with a blank file. There is a boot.bak from when I instaled easybcd a long time ago.

Hi, jbinbi. Welcome to NST.
You need to have your XP boot files on the "system" partition, as shown from Win 7 in Disk Management.
As for the boot.ini error, I'm not exactly sure what could be the cause of that, and so I will wait until someone else comes along, who may have a better answer.

Cheers.

-Coolname007

PC eye · #3 January 26th, 2009, 10:26 PM

When dual booting XP with 7 here XP wasn't seen at first and the previous versions of Windows item was the first thing removed with EasyBCD. Once you go into the Disk Management tool and right click on the XP primary to assign a drive letter you can then go into EasyBCD to add the new entry changing the boot sector listing to the drive letter you just assigned for XP when selecting the drive.

jbinbi · #4 January 26th, 2009, 10:35 PM

Not sure what you are saying pceye. It sees XP just fine in the boot menu. It just doesn't boot when it's selected.

I am pretty sure that the boot.ini being bad is an issue, the old boot.bak has
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Not sure if I can just rename and try this.

PC eye · #5 January 26th, 2009, 10:57 PM

That shows you installed XP following Vista there on the second primary. Both VIsta and 7 are still going to see boot information placed on the first where the BCD and boot loader is located. With XP on the second the boot.ini information there is correct as long as you have a copy of it on the root of the first primary.

Entries #1 and #4 are useless since 7 is seeing itself as C there and you have entry #4 set as C for XP. No go! You first need to look to see which other drive lettter was assigned to the XP primary if second on the drive when creating a new entry with EasyBCD installed on 7.

Terry60 · #6 January 26th, 2009, 11:59 PM

Check the XP troubleshooter for the symptoms relating to your XP failure.
Also read the sticky thread ( Point 6) paying attention to the bit about numbering of logical disks.
If you want to edit boot.ini use wordpad (right click - open as administrator)

PC eye · #7 January 27th, 2009, 01:20 AM

When simply double clicking on the boot.ini file NotePad will open it right up. The thing to remember first however is right clicking on it to uncheck the "read only" box and click on the apply button since any protected system files will be read only by default.

jbinbi · #8 January 27th, 2009, 04:29 PM

OK. Read all the stuff suggested, still not sure. 2 things.
1. Can't open boot.ini by double clicking or right clicking. Unchecked read only , but still can't open it. So renamed it to boot.ini.new and renamed the boot.bak, contents listed above as boot.ini. This is on the C drive that is booting Vista fine.

Still no luck.
2. I have 3 drive letters, one single hard drive. C, D, F (E is the cd). When I look at the contents, it seems that the XP files are on D. So I deleted entries in easybcd from above config (see top post), and created entry 3 , see below.

Name: Microsoft Windows
BCD ID: {ffda75a7-d717-11dc-9b20-000ea6f130ab}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

Addendum:

OK. That gave me the ntldr error, so changed the drive back to C. The only thing left is that is that boot.ini is wrong, but I have from system disk manager, C is system , boot (Vista boot I think), F , primary partition, and then D, logical partition. So the boot.ini has Partition as (2), which I think would be correct (C=0, F=1, D=2). Thanks for all this help.

Addendum:

Sorry, I might have left this as it is working. It is not! I still would appreciate any help here, I am kind of desperate. If anyone could look thru what I have done and where it is now and let me know, I thank them. Sincerely, Scott

Terry60 · #9 January 27th, 2009, 06:56 PM

You didn't read the bit I told you about numbering logical disks, or about windows partition numbers.
Windows starts counting partitions at 1 not 0, so increase it by 1 for that.

jbinbi · #10 February 10th, 2009, 09:14 PM

Thanks for this help, changed values, system booted just fine. Had a system crash, Vista and 7 boot fine, XP comes up with a corrupt or missing ntosknl.exe error. Can't find that info on your site. Any idea here? Thanks, Scott

Coolname007 · #11 February 10th, 2009, 11:15 PM

Originally Posted by jbinbi

Thanks for this help, changed values, system booted just fine. Had a system crash, Vista and 7 boot fine, XP comes up with a corrupt or missing ntosknl.exe error. Can't find that info on your site. Any idea here? Thanks, Scott

Here it is:
Troubleshooting Windows XP - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

Scroll down the page, and you'll find what that error means and how to fix it. Basically, it means your boot.ini is still wrong, and you will need to find the correct rdisk ( ) and partition ( ) values in both lines.

Cheers!

-Coolname007