Win7/XP Dual Boot, Boot Manager Lost and Partially Recovered

M

MudSpike

Member
I have a dual boot system running XP Pro x64 and Win 7 Pro 64x. A couple weeks ago I had to power down due to a system lockup on the Windows 7 OS. When I fired it back up there was no boot loader. I bumbled around with the installation CD's and had it back up and running after about 45 minutes. A couple days ago I had the same type of system lockup in Win 7 but apparently got my bumble order messed up so I couldn't get it back this time. So I wondered around the net and found the NeoSmart Windows 7 recovery disk and purchased it. I got Windows 7 up and running but when I went to my iReboot icon there is no XP (Earlier Version of Windows) option and XP is gone from the boot menu, so I purchased the NeoSmart XP Recovery disk. I was just about to push the repair button on the XP recovery disk when it popped into my head that this is likely to do the very same thing as installing XP on a dual boot after any newer OS.

After a little investigation, I believe that the easiest way to correct my problem is to simply install Easy BCD on my Win 7 OS, open Easy BCD and install the XP boot loader to the MBR but beings things have a habit of not going well for me, I thought I would check here first.

I do have another issue; when the NeoSmart Windows 7 recovery disk repaired Win 7 it rearranged some of my drive letters, not a big deal when running Win 7 but when I get XP running I have an array of CAD model paths specifically starting with the Drive letter (E). Will I be able to easily put the drive letter back to E after I get my XP boot loader back?

I'm off to work now, hoping for some good answers when I get back home... Thanks in advance, MudSpike
 
Don't install the XP boot to the MBR.
W7 must control the boot.
Just use EasyBCD to add an XP entry to the BCD.
Let it auto-configure and it will do everything required to boot XP from the W7 bootmgr.

Disk Management snap-in will reassign any stray letters (except if the partition is flagged boot, system or page)
 
I want to add another drive with a second Win 7 OS on it because I have some software that I can't run side by side. Now that Win 7 is controlling the boot is there anything special I need to do before installing Win 7 on another drive?
 
The new installation will see the existing W7 (provided you haven't removed or hidden it) and automatically dual-boot itself by adding an entry into the existing BCD.
You don't need to do anything with EasyBCD but you might like to make some cosmetic changes like renaming the W7s in the boot menu for easy identification.("Edit Boot Menu")
 
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