Boot.ini confusion

C

chucketn

Member
I have sucessfully set up dual boot of Vista Home Premium(first install) and XP Pro(2nd) on my Compaq Presario C770US notebook. I can sucessfully boot either Vista or XP. My problem is when booting I get the menu to choose Vista or XP, and if I choose XP, I get another boot menu where I have to choose XP again to sucessfully boot XP. That menu also has a default OS entry, which, if chosen, does nothing and I must spower off and back on to recover. I have previously configured a desktop to dual boot with Vista Business and XP Pro, and removed the second boot menu so chosing XP from the first menu goes directly to XP. Problem is, I can't remember how I did it. Can anyone help point me in the right direction?:wtf:

Thanks,
Chuck
 
Hi chuck, welcome to NST.
Your problem is that the copy of boot.ini on your "active" partition has 2 alternatives, forcing NTLDR to present you with a menu.
Most likely, you forgot to change the default line to match the line you edited when you set up the dual boot. Change the values of rdisk() and partition() to be exactly the same as in the line that works.
As soon as NTLDR can only find one place to go, it won't bother asking you.
 
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I see only one boot.ini file on the "C:" when booted in either Vista or XP. It is listed below:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

You are sugesting to change it to this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Vista"

Chuck
 
No. Your problem is that you don't have a "default" entry, so it's using the internal NTLDR default "default" (if you see what I mean).
You need a default line pointing to the same partition as the other line.
See the wiki for the proper syntax, and you can copy/paste/edit the version there.
You need the default line, and just one entry in the [operating systems] section, both pointing to the same place.(XP's partition)
NTLDR knows nothing of Vista and cannot be used to boot Vista, so remove the reference to it.
 
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Like so:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Addendum:

Sorry, forgot to change partition. Like so:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Addendum:

I've modified the boot.ini as posted, waiting to hear it's correct before rebooting.

Addendum:

Thanks, Terry. That fixed it. I also set delay to 0 to avoid seeing the second boot menu all together, which is what I origionally wanted to do.

Chuck
 
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Looks good.
Don't worry about playing with it, you won't do any damage. It'll either do what you want or it won't.
Our standard advice for someone who can't decide what partition/rdisk combination is correct, is "try them all till you find what works". Nothing else in XP will be altered by an unsuccessful attempt.


Addendum:


You don't need to set timeout(0), though it'll do no harm.
Either having only one choice or having timeout(0) will prevent a menu being presented.
 
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