Dual booting between XP Pro SP3 and 7

Sailorcancer · #1 January 13th, 2009, 03:36 AM

Ok so I installed the Windows 7 beta on a separate HDD I have. So I have XP on one HDD and 7 on the other.

I have the HDD with 7 as the HDD to boot from. I used EasyBCD 1.7.2 to also have my XP drive be seen in a boot up screen.

When I first did this and tried to start from XP I got a message that the NTDLR file was missing. But if I went into BIOS and had the boot drive be the XP drive XP would start fine, but I wouldn't get to choose which OS to boot from.

So I went back into 7 and checked EasyBCD 1.7.2 and found out it wasn't on the right drive for whatever reason. So I put it back to D and tried again. Now whenever I select the drive with XP on it my computer just restarts and does not boot into XP.

Any help would be great!

Thanks.

Coolname007 · #2 January 13th, 2009, 03:41 AM

Hi, Sailorcancer. Welcome to NST. Have you read the sticky? PLEASE READ BEFORE POSTING WITH A PROBLEM - The NeoSmart Forums

A lot of common booting problems are described there, and how to fix them.

Good luck.

-Coolname007

Sailorcancer · #3 January 13th, 2009, 03:55 AM

I went to the Disk Management section but did not see any flags.

Coolname007 · #4 January 13th, 2009, 04:02 AM

Originally Posted by Sailorcancer

I went to the Disk Management section but did not see any flags.

When Terry said "flags", I believe he meant the part under the "Status" section in the Disk Management window, in parentheses...something like this: Healthy (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition)
I believe that is what he meant by "flags".

-Coolname007

Sailorcancer · #5 January 13th, 2009, 04:10 AM

OH ok.

Yes the HDD that Windows 7 is on has Boot in it.

Disk 0 = Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) This is Windows 7
Disk 1 = Healthy (Active, Primary Partition) This is Windows XP

Coolname007 · #6 January 13th, 2009, 04:15 AM

Originally Posted by Sailorcancer

OH ok.

Yes the HDD that Windows 7 is on has Boot in it.

Disk 0 = Healthy (Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) This is Windows 7
Disk 1 = Healthy (Active, Primary Partition) This is Windows XP

Oh, right.

I totally forgot that you had XP, and not Vista! Which means there will be no "system" partition! That is strictly a Vista term.

Ok, so your XP boot files (boot.ini, NTDETECT.COM, and ntldr) will most likely be on your XP partition...and so you will need to copy them over to your Win 7 partition, and then edit your boot.ini, if necessary, to make it work.

-Coolname007

kairozamorro · #7 January 13th, 2009, 04:20 AM

Boot from your Win 7 drive as the primary boot device. Make sure your XP setting is pointing to XP's drive and not Win 7s. If your sitll having problems, copy ntdetect.com over to the root of Win 7's partition and try the entry again.

Coolname007 · #8 January 13th, 2009, 04:23 AM

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

Boot from your Win 7 drive as the primary boot device. Make sure your XP setting is pointing to XP's drive and not Win 7s. If your sitll having problems, copy ntdetect.com over to the root of Win 7's partition and try the entry again.

Oh, right.

Stupid me...I skipped over the part about not being able to boot into XP!

Although you would probably be able to access the XP partition from Win 7, though, and copy the XP boot files from there..

Do what Justin tells you, Sailorcancer, and see if that fixes the problem.

-Coolname007

Sailorcancer · #9 January 13th, 2009, 04:28 AM

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

Boot from your Win 7 drive as the primary boot device. Make sure your XP setting is pointing to XP's drive and not Win 7s. If your sitll having problems, copy ntdetect.com over to the root of Win 7's partition and try the entry again.

Ok just want to make sure I got this.

Make the 7s HDD the primary boot drive (check)
Do I need to boot into XP to check the settings? Because the only way for me to boot into XP is to make the XP drive the primary boot drive.
So I just need to find the "ntdetect.com" file in my XP drive and then just paste it into the 7 drive?

Am I on the right track?

Coolname007 · #10 January 13th, 2009, 04:32 AM

Originally Posted by Sailorcancer

Ok just want to make sure I got this.

Make the 7s HDD the primary boot drive (check)
Do I need to boot into XP to check the settings? Because the only way for me to boot into XP is to make the XP drive the primary boot drive.
So I just need to find the "ntdetect.com" file in my XP drive and then just paste it into the 7 drive?

Am I on the right track?

Your "ntdetect.com", along with "boot.ini", and "ntldr" will be in your XP "root". In case you don't know what that means, it means they would be located at just C:/ or D:/ (and not at C:/Program Files, or anywhere else)...whichever one is the XP drive.

And no, you can check the settings from Win 7, assuming that's where you're using EasyBCD from.

Just open up EasyBCD, go to "View Settings", and find out where the XP entry is pointing. And then post here, and tell us where its pointing.

-Coolname007

EDIT: And you also may have to unhide your system files, before you can view your XP boot files...

kairozamorro · #11 January 13th, 2009, 04:38 AM

All you should need is ntdetect.com since your XP entry should be pointing at XP's drive and not Win 7s. This will be in the root of XP's drive. You must first enable viewing hidden and protected operating system files to copy it over.

Sailorcancer · #12 January 13th, 2009, 04:40 AM

Originally Posted by Coolname007

Your "ntdetect.com", along with "boot.ini", and "ntldr" will be in your XP "root". In case you don't know what that means, it means they would be located at just C:/ or D:/ (and not at C:/Program Files, or anywhere else)...whichever one is the XP drive.

And no, you can check the settings from Win 7, assuming that's where you're using EasyBCD from.

Just open up EasyBCD, go to "View Settings", and find out where the XP entry is pointing. And then post here, and tell us where its pointing.

-Coolname007

Is this what you mean?

Entry #2

Name: Windows XP Professional
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

Also I took a look at the root of my XP drive. I do not see anywhere the root:
ntdetect.com
boot.ini
ntldr
Files

Doing a search did not find them either.

Addendum:

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

All you should need is ntdetect.com since your XP entry should be pointing at XP's drive and not Win 7s. This will be in the root of XP's drive. You must first enable viewing hidden and protected operating system files to copy it over.

Ok that did it. In terms of finding them.

EDIT:

I just finished copying the ntdetect.com file. I am not going to try and see if it worked.

Wish me luck.

Coolname007 · #13 January 13th, 2009, 04:43 AM

Originally Posted by Sailorcancer

Is this what you mean?

Entry #2

Name: Windows XP Professional
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

Also I took a look at the root of my XP drive. I do not see anywhere the root:
ntdetect.com
boot.ini
ntldr
Files

Doing a search did not find them either.

Yes, that is what I meant. So it appears as if your XP partition is pointing to D:\. So now ask yourself the question if Win 7 is D:/. And if it is not on D:\, then you will need to point it at most likely C:\ instead.

And like me and Justin said, you will have to unhide your system files before being able to see ntdetect.com in your XP root.

-Coolname007

EDIT: Ok, I see you found them. Now do what Justin said, and copy ntdetect.com over to your Win 7 partition...and see if that fixes it.

EDIT #2: I see you're already doing that!

kairozamorro · #14 January 13th, 2009, 04:47 AM

Ok never mind this won't work unless you want to modify your boot.ini on your xp drive. If you do this you won't be able to boot XP's drive on its own.

So what you need to do than is follow my orginal instructions, but copy over ntldr and boot.ini as coolname suggested. Than you'll need to modify the copied boot.ini on Win 7's drive so its pointing to the correct place.

Your ...rdisk() values in your boot.ini file should be something like ...rdisk(0)... but make them ...rdisk(1)...

Coolname007 · #15 January 13th, 2009, 04:49 AM

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

Ok never mind this won't work unless you want to modify your boot.ini on your xp drive. If you do this you won't be able to boot XP's drive on its own.

So what you need to do than is follow my orginal instructions, but copy over ntldr and boot.ini as coolname suggested. Than you'll need to modify the copied boot.ini on Win 7's drive so its pointing to the correct place.

Your ...rdisk() values in your boot.ini file should be something like ...rdisk(0)... but make them ...rdisk(1)...

Yeah, I was waiting for you to correct yourself!

I didn't want to argue with you, so I simply told him to go with what you said, and copy only the ntdetect.com file over!

When I really knew all along, he would need all 3 files...

-Coolname007