ARC error "Too many configuration entries"

S

socraticus

Member
I need help because I'm stuck in a Vista-XP dual-boot system that doesn't boot XP. I created 2 primary partitions and installed XP in the firs partition <C:>. Later I installed Vista in the seccond partition <D:>. Everething was working fine, and the Vista boot manager could boot XP. Later on, the XP installation got corrupt and I had to reinstall XP. As expected, XP overwrote the MBR and boot sector with its own code. I used EasyBCD 1.7 to restore Vista MBR and add the XP. It restored the MDB, but when I restarted only Vista could boot. XP gave an error 0xc000000f /ntldr "The selected entry could not be loaded...". And my problems began. I have been reading in a lot of forums and Microsoft articles to find out how to fix this problem. I downloaded the last version of EasyBCD 2.0 buil 63 and that's the one I'm using.
Now I am working in Vista. When I tried to rebuild the BCD file with EasyBCD things got worse, because now Vista coludn't find the bootloader.exe. I loaded the Vista DVD and restored the startup. Now I have a "Clean" BCD with only the vista entry on it.
I tried again to use EasyBCD to add XP, and when i see the BCD with bcdedit.exe I notice that the new entry is like "Boot real-mode" and the identifier is not {ntldr} as Microsoft says it should be, but a long device number. I restarted and XP gave the same error. I think that is a bug of EasyBCD, because the proper identifier {ntldr} is the one for the Legacy OS.
I decided then to edit the BCD myself. Now I am working from the Vista DVD Command prompt. First I applyed the command:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
Drive:\boot\Bootsect.exe /NT60 All /force
In this command, Drive is the drive where the Windows Vista installation media is located. In this case is E:

It unmounted the two partitions, C: and D: and applied the bootsect to both partitions. The I added the entry for XP:
bcdedit –set {ntldr} device partition=D:
bcdedit –set {ntldr} path \ntldr
bcdedit –displayorder {ntldr} –addlast
bcdedit -set {ntldr} description "Windows XP"

I copied the ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini to D: (seing from vista, where XP files are copied) which is the active partition.
Finally i could pass the "ntldr not found" error, but then I got a "Windows could not start because of the following ARC firmware boot configuration problem Too many configuration entries."
I loaded XP recovery console and rebuilt the boot.ini file and still got the same error.
This Dual booting has been painful and I need some help.
 
Hi socraticus, welcome to NST.
The idea of EasyBCD is right there in the name.
It's job is to avoid the need for using the BCDedit command line interface.
Boot the Vista DVD and run "repair my computer" "startup repair" as many times as needed to get Vista booting properly.
Install EasyBCD 2.0 latest build
Run EasyBCD and add an entry for XP
Let EasyBCD auto-configure the XP boot files for you, and don't go changing things.
 
Problem solved

Hi, Terry

Thank you very much for taking time answering me. I decided to follow your advice and give EasyBCD another shot. I removed the entries I created and let it do its job. And it worked!!! The reason why it wasn't working was because, by some reason, being my XP partition the Active partition, it didn't have the ntldr and ntdetect.com the first time I tried, but EasyBCD copied them for me. Great program you have created.
 
I've spent countless hours here advising what files to copy, where to put them, how to identify the right place and how to modify the contents of boot.ini including the information that identifying the correct values of the latter is not always possible to the human observer and needs to be done by trial and error in that case.
Lately, all that has become history thanks to Guru's ever-evolving code which now does all of the above including eliciting the information not available to even the trained eye.
Glad that it's done the business for you too.
Happy dual-booting.
 
Back
Top