Dual booting between XP Pro SP3 and 7

[Sailorcancer]

Ok so the boot did not work. When I selected Windows XP it just restarted my computer.

SO let me just make sure I get this:

Copy over from XP to 7 the boot.ini and the ntldr
Go into EasyBCD and tell the Windows XP to boot from C not D.

Do I have it?

[kairozamorro]

Sorry, busy doing other stuff in the background and lost track of what I was saying. I'm getting really distracted by this new interface in win 7...

Yep. Go into EasyBCD after you've copied over ntdetect.com, ntldr, and boot.ini and make sure its pointing to Win 7's drive instead. Change boot.ini (the copy) so its ...rdisk(0)...s are ...rdisk(1)...s

[Coolname007]

Originally Posted by Sailorcancer

Ok so the boot did not work. When I selected Windows XP it just restarted my computer.

SO let me just make sure I get this:

Copy over from XP to 7 the boot.ini and the ntldr
Go into EasyBCD and tell the Windows XP to boot from C not D.

Do I have it?

Not exactly. You will need to check to see which drive is which. Is D:\ Win 7, or is D:\ XP? If it is the latter, then yes, you will need to point it at the correct drive.

-Coolname007

Addendum:

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

Sorry, busy doing other stuff in the background and lost track of what I was saying. I'm getting really distracted by this new interface in win 7...

Yep. Go into EasyBCD after you've copied over ntdetect.com, ntldr, and boot.ini and make sure its pointing to Win 7's drive instead. Change boot.ini (the copy) so its ...rdisk(0)...s are ...rdisk(1)...s

He might also have to change the partition (x) numbers as well. We can't be sure that its set on the right numbers.

-Coolname007

[kairozamorro]

That's why I said Win 7's drive since I don't know how his drives are setup as far as the lettering...

But assuming that he has only one partition on each disk and he doesn't have a disc drive thats drive D: that should be correct. The partition number won't haft to be changed cool. XP hasn't been moved to another partition, just as far as the computer is concerned, to another disk

[Sailorcancer]

Ok so copied over the two remaining files from my XP drive to 7 drive.

Just to say:

7 = C
XP = D

Now in EasyBCD I went to change settings went to the XP OS and changed its drive from D to C.

Now it's saying:

Entry #2

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

Everything good?

[Coolname007]

Originally Posted by Sailorcancer

Ok so copied over the two remaining files from my XP drive to 7 drive.

Just to say:

7 = C
XP = D

Now in EasyBCD I went to change settings went to the XP OS and changed its drive from D to C.

Now it's saying:

Entry #2

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

Everything good?

PERFECT! That is exactly the way it should be setup! Now it should work, providing your boot.ini is configured correctly, of course....

-Coolname007

[kairozamorro]

Yes... now to work on your copied boot.ini file.
Change the ...rdisk(0)...s to ...rdisk(1)...s

The exception here though is if 7 sees itself as second. If it does, than you don't need to do this. You can find out by going to disk management.

[Sailorcancer]

So open the boot.ini file in notepad and then edit it.

Correct?

[kairozamorro]

Yes, but go to properties first and disable read-only. Otherwise it won't let you save the changes.

[Coolname007]

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

The exception here though is if 7 sees itself as second. If it does, than you don't need to do this. You can find out by going to disk management.

He already went to Disk Management. Disk 0 = Win 7, and Disk 1 = XP.

-Coolname007

[kairozamorro]

Ok so boot.ini edit is necessary than....

[Coolname007]

Originally Posted by kairozamorro

Ok so boot.ini edit is necessary than....

Yes, he will need to change the rdisk (0)s to rdisk (1)s as already mentioned.

-Coolname007

[Sailorcancer]

I can't save it.

I right clicked on the boot.ini file when to properties and read only was not checked. When I save it it says that there is already one there. Asks me if I want to over write it so I do then it says it can't create it.

SO I saved it to my desktop and then just did a copy and paste. Which apparently worked. BUT I still can not boot into XP.

When I select it and hit enter it just reboots my system.

But just to make sure... THis is all right right?

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

[Coolname007]

Originally Posted by Sailorcancer

I can't save it.

I right clicked on the boot.ini file when to properties and read only was not checked. When I save it it says that there is already one there. Asks me if I want to over write it so I do then it says it can't create it.

SO I saved it to my desktop and then just did a copy and paste. Which apparently worked. BUT I still can not boot into XP.

When I select it and hit enter it just reboots my system.

But just to make sure... THis is all right right?

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

Yeah, it looks fine to me...unless of course the partition numbers are off!

Or it could be a separate problem you're having now, not related to boot.ini...

-Coolname007

[Sailorcancer]

Originally Posted by Coolname007

Yeah, it looks fine to me...unless of course the partition numbers are off!

Or it could be a separate problem you're having now, not related to boot.ini...

-Coolname007

Could it be with the ntldr? What would the next course of action be?