Boot Vista/XP

Steven

Member
Hi,

On my pc was XP only installed.
I heard that installing Vista on another partion could damage XP so what i did was this:

I disconnected the hardrive where XP was installed and connected another drive and installed
Vista on it.
Afterwards i reconected the "old" XP drive.
The drives are now set up like this:

C: Vista (Vista HD)
D: Shared 1 (vista HD)
G: Windows XP (XP HD)
H: Shared 2 (XP HD)

After the first boot when i connected the XP drive again Vista booted up, i installed
Easy BCD and add an entry for XP.

Properties:

Entry #1
Name: Microsoft windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader path:Windows\....
Windows dir: windows...

Entry #2

Name: Microsoft windows XP
BCD ID: {........}
Drive: G:\
Bootloader path: \NTLDR
Windows dir:

Now i am only able to choose for Vista, if i choose the option Windows XP the computer wil restart.
Searched this forum but no answer.

I have no boot.ini file
The file NTDLR is located in the I386 folder
The Bootcfg is located also in the I386 folder.

Can i write a boot ini file in a note pad and do i have to replace the NTLDR and the bootcfg to
the root folder?

Help is appreciated!

Thanks,

Steven
 
Hey Steven, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies!

You just need to create a boot.ini file in drive G: and that should take care of it.

Make sure to use the right drive letters and numbers.

-CG
 
Hi,

Thanks for your answer.
Added a boot.ini file however xp will still not boot.

The boot.ini file looks like this:

[boot loader]
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /FASTDETECT

I have IDE disc's and the G drive is the primary slave so i think this must be ok.

Any help is appreciated!

Regards,

Steven
 
As an IDE drive, it's not an *rdisk* but a *disk* and therefore it should look like:
Code:
[boot loader] 
[operating systems] 
multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /FASTDETECT
Does that work?
 
Hi, I have the same problem! If I chose windows XP from boot the pc restart....

The story:

I installed vista disconnecting the xp disk;
I connected the xp disk
(so there wasn,t the vista bootloader)
I installed EasyBCD 1.5.1 and I installed vista bootloader and an XP entry (selecting drive d:\)

Vista start correctly from bootloader but if I choose XP the computer restart.
Now, I have vista on a disk (c: under vista) and XP in a partition of another disk (d: in vista).
In d: (the old disk) there is the boot.ini and ntldr and ntdetect. the boot.ini is:

[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="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn

I tried changing in:

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

but without any result.

the only way for loading XP is changing in the BIOS the IDE disk (from IDE0 ti IDE1) for booting

Any suggestion?

Thanks you!!!!!
 
Thanks for your reply, however it still was not working.
Did some research and now i have got it working.
What i did was:

Pluged both drives in and set the Windows XP drive to be the boot drive in the BIOS,
than i was able to boot XP.

Checked in disc management if the c drive was indeed the system drive, it was.

Copied the folder "Boot" and the file "bootmgr" from the Vista installation drive and paste it to the XP installation drive (unhide protected operating system files in the folder options)

Reinstalled the Vista bootloader with only Vista as operating system with EayBCD

Added windows XP afterwards as second operating system with EasyBCD


Thanks for your support!

Regards,

Steven
 
Glad you got it working Steven, I'm saving your steps to be added to the Documentation once it goes final.

Stick around, more EasyBCD is coming! :smile:
 
Steven said:
Thanks for your reply, however it still was not working.
Did some research and now i have got it working.
What i did was:

Pluged both drives in and set the Windows XP drive to be the boot drive in the BIOS,
than i was able to boot XP.

Checked in disc management if the c drive was indeed the system drive, it was.

Copied the folder "Boot" and the file "bootmgr" from the Vista installation drive and paste it to the XP installation drive (unhide protected operating system files in the folder options)

Reinstalled the Vista bootloader with only Vista as operating system with EayBCD

Added windows XP afterwards as second operating system with EasyBCD


Thanks for your support!

Regards,

Steven
Hi
I can't see boot folder nor bootmgr file in vista drive (from within XP)even when unhide operating system files. I found them by file searcher and copied
them from there to XP drive. But after making all Stevens steps, I still can't
boot XP from EasyBCD. Any help here?
Roman
 
Which drive did you set XP to?
It needs to be the one with the "boot" folder, which isn't necessarily the one where XP is installed.

Welcome to NeoSmart Technologies, BTW :smile:
 
Steven said:
Reinstalled the Vista bootloader with only Vista as operating system with EayBCD

Added windows XP afterwards as second operating system with EasyBCD
Steven,

Can you please elaborate more on these steps.

Vista bootloader reinstalled with EasyBCD from Vista or XP?

And what drive letter if it from Vista? I presume that if it is from XP than it would be C:, but in that case what is the drive letter for Vista?

Thanks
 
Hi CanMac, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies!

It doesn't make a difference where you install the bootloader from, any changes EasyBCD makes from one OS are automatically propogated to all others - the beauty of EasyBCD's cross-platform support.

The Drive Letter for a Vista OS should be the drive letter that appears for that drive/partition in My Computer from whatever OS you are currently in.

Good luck!
 
Hi,

I tried as said by Steven. But did not worked. I have same configuration as Steve.(Vista and XP installed on separate HDD and Vista installed with XP HDD disconnected).

Copied file(bootmgr) and folder(boot)to XP as suggested by Steven.Booted in to Vista. From EasyBCD I made sure that XP entry was not there. Then (re)installed Vista boot loader. Made entry for XP. The entry had drive letter C:\ (same as Vista). Tried to boot. Did not worked. Changed the drive letter to D:\ (this is what XP has in Vista). No go. Even direct XP boot-up didn't worked.

Unloaded Vista boot loader. Now direct booting to XP works but no Vista.

Can somebody please highlight the steps to be followed, so that can dual boot from either XP or Vista.

Steven,
Can you please explain this in detail?
"The file NTDLR is located in the I386 folder
The Bootcfg is located also in the I386 folder."

Thanks.
 
CanMac, please open a new thread for your problem, I'm getting really confused between your problem and Steven's problem.

In the new thread please indicate:
1) The exact details of your issue.
2) The steps you have tried to fix it.

Hopefully that will make things easier to fix.

-CG
 
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