Perihelion
Member
I've been running XP Pro for years, but I wanted to take a serious look at Vista and I didn't have a spare computer around. I grabbed an extra 40GB drive, installed it, and proceeded to install Vista Build 5600 x64. Install went great, but then I wanted to get back into my XP install.. This is where the problems began...
Unlike what others have reported, I did not have a boot menu with the "Older Windows" option. I looked around my computer in Vista and discovered that my drive letters had been changed, my XP drive is now being called F:, while Vista is, of course, C:. I installed EasyBCD 1.5, added XP for the F: drive, and rebooted. When I tried to boot to XP, I received an error referring to NTLDR not being found in the c:\windows\ folder (I think that's what it was anyhow).
I did my due diligence and researched dual-booting with Vista and XP, and it seems like this could have all been prevented had I done that in the first place. The suggestions that I keep seeing include formatting and naming the new drive a specific drive letter within XP, THEN installing Vista to it.
I have read all of the topics on this forum and tried just about every suggestion to no avail. Here is the current configuration (Everything is taken from within Vista, the only OS I can boot to at the moment):
Drives:
C: Vista System Partition
D: One of my partitions from my XP install.
E: Another partition from XP.
F: XP System Partition
Addendum: XP Recovery Console shows XP to be installed on F: and Vista to be installed on D:
Here is my current BCD configuration:
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=D:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
displayorder {current}
{341113db-72e6-11db-b07c-00508d73d6ef}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {5320412b-72c2-11db-b597-a619d9f4fbf3}
nx OptIn
Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {341113db-72e6-11db-b07c-00508d73d6ef}
device partition=F:
path \ntldr
description Windows XP Pro
I wasn't sure why the bootmgr was installed on the D: drive, but then I checked around and found that Vista installs it on the first physical drive in the system (And my D: drive fits that description).
Some extra info:
The D: drive is an IDE 160GB drive on the Primary IDE channel.
The E: & F: drives are SATA drives.
The C: drive is an IDE 40GB drive on the Secondary IDE channel.
Now here's the kicker: I can't get back into XP, even if I use EasyBCD to uninstall the Vista bootloader. That prevented my system from loading at all, and I had to boot to the Vista DVD and use the "Repair Startup" option to get Vista running again.
I've tried using "fixboot" and "fixmbr" on the XP "F:" drive within Recovery Console with no change.
Oh, and here's my boot.ini file from the F: drive as well:
[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=""
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
You know, if Vista just used the boot.ini file, we wouldn't have these problems...
Anyhow, if anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Thanks in advance!
Unlike what others have reported, I did not have a boot menu with the "Older Windows" option. I looked around my computer in Vista and discovered that my drive letters had been changed, my XP drive is now being called F:, while Vista is, of course, C:. I installed EasyBCD 1.5, added XP for the F: drive, and rebooted. When I tried to boot to XP, I received an error referring to NTLDR not being found in the c:\windows\ folder (I think that's what it was anyhow).
I did my due diligence and researched dual-booting with Vista and XP, and it seems like this could have all been prevented had I done that in the first place. The suggestions that I keep seeing include formatting and naming the new drive a specific drive letter within XP, THEN installing Vista to it.
I have read all of the topics on this forum and tried just about every suggestion to no avail. Here is the current configuration (Everything is taken from within Vista, the only OS I can boot to at the moment):
Drives:
C: Vista System Partition
D: One of my partitions from my XP install.
E: Another partition from XP.
F: XP System Partition
Addendum: XP Recovery Console shows XP to be installed on F: and Vista to be installed on D:
Here is my current BCD configuration:
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=D:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
displayorder {current}
{341113db-72e6-11db-b07c-00508d73d6ef}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {5320412b-72c2-11db-b597-a619d9f4fbf3}
nx OptIn
Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {341113db-72e6-11db-b07c-00508d73d6ef}
device partition=F:
path \ntldr
description Windows XP Pro
I wasn't sure why the bootmgr was installed on the D: drive, but then I checked around and found that Vista installs it on the first physical drive in the system (And my D: drive fits that description).
Some extra info:
The D: drive is an IDE 160GB drive on the Primary IDE channel.
The E: & F: drives are SATA drives.
The C: drive is an IDE 40GB drive on the Secondary IDE channel.
Now here's the kicker: I can't get back into XP, even if I use EasyBCD to uninstall the Vista bootloader. That prevented my system from loading at all, and I had to boot to the Vista DVD and use the "Repair Startup" option to get Vista running again.
I've tried using "fixboot" and "fixmbr" on the XP "F:" drive within Recovery Console with no change.
Oh, and here's my boot.ini file from the F: drive as well:
[boot loader]
timeout=0
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS=""
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
You know, if Vista just used the boot.ini file, we wouldn't have these problems...
Anyhow, if anyone has any suggestions, I would love to hear them. Thanks in advance!