Added XP to Vista - EasyBCD error

marconst

Member
Hi, I'm new here - have been really grateful to find this place. First attempt at the Vista/XP dual boot hasn't worked, but I'm sure you can help me

I have an Acer 7720g, with 2x 160Gb HDs - Vista Home Premium came pre-installed and there's a recovery partition, which I've left in place (and burnt recovery DVDs)

The first disk in the notebook had Vista on C:\, and another NTFS partition, then the second disk also ntfs. I installed XP SP2 onto the second partition of the first disk. This all went well, all drivers installed and it boots straight into XP*. In XP it looked like this C:\ Vista, D:\ Data(second disk) and E:\ XP

Then I came to the dual boot bit following the instructions from your XP wiki. I installed .Net 2.0 and .Net 2.0 SP1 then EasyBCD 1.7.1. I got the msvcr71.dll error, but, as advised, carried on. I did the Re-install Vista Bootloader and Write MBR bit and that was fine

Then I got to Add\Remove Entries, chose Windows NT/2k/XP/2003 and called it Windows XP. When I clicked Add Entry I got this error message
"Unhandled exception error has occurred...Index and count must rfer to a location within the string. Parameter name: count"

It then gave me a choice (abort or continue(?)) and I chose continue and then rebooted

On reboot the boot stopped at:

Windows Error recovery. Windows failed to start then 2 choces
1)Launch Startup repair - (this achieved nothing except coming back to this menu)
2) Start Windows normally - (This booted me straight into Vista)

Now I'm in Vista and Vista only - can you get back my XP installation and the boot menu choice please?

When this is done I want to go on to add OS X on the other HD :smile:

Many thanks

Marco



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*(I changed SATA mode in BIOS from AHCI to IDE to install XP, then once up and running I forced installed SATA AHCI controller drivers in XP and restarted in AHCI mode and everything worked fine)

Addendum:

I've now installed EasyBCD on Vista
Went to Tools > Edit Legacy Entries
It reads like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
 
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Well does that boot.ini look like the one from XP? Only then will you know if it should dual boot correctly. Have you removed the XP Entry and added it back from within Vista? Have you copied over the NTLDER and NTDETECT and boot.ini files from the XP drive to the root of the Vista drive?
 
Hi, thanks for getting back so quickly

1) I can't say if the boot.ini looks like the one from XP because I can't find any file called boot.ini on the XP partition (E:\) - I looked with Explorer and searched (showing hidden files and unticking 'hide protected operating system files) I look at boot.ini on the Vista drive (C:\) and that boot.ini reads as above (the one I posted)

2) I haven't removed the XP Entry and added it when running EasyBCD from Vista because there is no entry for XP when running EasyBCD in Vista

This is what I have under view settings:

There is one entry in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Microsoft Windows Vista

Entry #1

Name: Microsoft Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

3) I haven't copied over the NTLDR and NTDETECT and boot.ini files from the XP drive to the root of the Vista drive because a) it wasn't mentioned in this xp wiki Installing XP After Vista - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
b) The Guru said it was a bad thing to have more than one copy of those files on your PC and
c) those files aren't present on my XP drive, but are already on my Vista drive
 
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OK, well you need to add an XP entry first to get it to work.

From the page you linked to in the Wiki:
Once that's done, head on to the "Add/Remove Entries" page and select "Windows NT/2k/XP/2003" from the drop-down list, give it a name, then press "Add Entry" to finish.
 
OK, thanks Guru. I didn't want to plough on with EasyBCD until I'd heard from you.

The gist is that after the XP installation, when my notebook was only booting into XP, I did what you said above and got:
"Unhandled exception error has occurred...Index and count must refer to a location within the string. Parameter name: count"

So you're saying ignore that and try it again from Vista, now that I'm only booting into that?
 
Hi Guru

Worked perfectly first time from Vista. Wonder why it didn't happen in XP?
Thank you very much for a great program and wonderful support. Vista looks like fun, but I have to have XP for music production. Now I got both and it's easy to switch

I'm gonna have a play and a read for a while then it's on to OS X. I'm sure I'll be speaking to you again soon

Cheers

Marco :smile:
 
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