Win 7/xp disk hardware config problem

hcj0218

Member
I tried to Dual Boot using XP first and then installing Win 7 onto a different disk. Win 7 got confused and installed over XP !!! It was polite and stored XP into a folder. I copied the contents of the folder onto a clean partition on the other HD. After lots of reading and trying and copying EasyBCD2 onto my system I think I have the Dual Boot set up correctly. However when I try to boot into XP I get a rather long message:

"Windows couldn't start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem."
"Could not read from the selected boot disk."
"Check boot path and disk hardware configuration."

Does "boot disk" refer to the partition with XP (P:\) or the active drive (C:\) ??

The "boot.ini" correctly refers to the XP on the P: partition and the XP boot entry refers to C:

Any ideas about how to fix this situation would be greatly appreciated as I have a lot of things installed in XP and don't have the time to reinstall while trying to learn Win 7.

Thanks

HJ
 
I tried to Dual Boot using XP first and then installing Win 7 onto a different disk. Win 7 got confused and installed over XP !!! It was polite and stored XP into a folder. I copied the contents of the folder onto a clean partition on the other HD. After lots of reading and trying and copying EasyBCD2 onto my system I think I have the Dual Boot set up correctly. However when I try to boot into XP I get a rather long message:

"Windows couldn't start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem."
"Could not read from the selected boot disk."
"Check boot path and disk hardware configuration."

Does "boot disk" refer to the partition with XP (P:\) or the active drive (C:\) ??
Hi hc, welcome to NST.
"boot disk" in this case refers to the HDD/partition pointed to by boot.ini.
The "boot.ini" correctly refers to the XP on the P: partition and the XP boot entry refers to C:
Sounds good. (@ Justin: I do believe this means he already used EasyBCD to auto-configure)
Any ideas about how to fix this situation would be greatly appreciated as I have a lot of things installed in XP and don't have the time to reinstall while trying to learn Win 7.

Thanks

HJ
As I understand it, you copied XP to a partition on the HDD you originally intended to put W7 on (but which decided for itself which HDD was better suited:brows:smile:? Are you sure you copied all the files right, first of all?
Try putting the XP HDD as the first HDD in the boot seqeuence of the BIOS, then boot from your XP disk, access the Recovery Console, and do:
Code:
fixmbr
fixboot
Then take the CD out, and try to boot XP as normal. If nothing else, at least you'll be able to get into XP again, and we can figure out what to do next.
 
More info

Thanks for info

I had a good running XP system. I tried to dual boot with Win 7 and it installed over the XP system but saved the Windows folder and files. I have since determined the problem was the BIOS was not recognizing the second HDD. When I corrected this the Dual boot worked but Windows XP could not completely load ... it just hung. I am now trying to decide how to fix that problem. I think I will allow XP boot disk repair the install. I expect it will break my dual install so I will have to use EasyBCD2 to fix that?

Any suggestions before I try to repair the installed Windows XP ??

HJ
 
Yes, doing a repair install of XP will indeed break the dual-boot (you wont see the menu anymore).
To get it back, you'll need to either run Startup Repair from the W7 DVD, or Manage Bootloader| Reinstall the Vista/7 Bootloader | Write MBR from EasybCD inside XP.
 
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