Cannot Boot Into Legacy Windows After Install Vista

citrix

Member
:ldown:

I installed vista on a clean new hard drive recently. I originally had server 2003 installed on another drive. The boot loader information was erased after clean install of vista. Now I cannot log into older version of windows.


I tried to used EasyBCDto to create a new entry in the bcd store, and also tried to create using bcdedit. the location is \ntldr.

when I try to log in earlier version of windows, it says invalid locaton, \ntldr.

how can I fix this?
 
Hey Citrix,

Welcome to NeoSmart Technologies, glad you found EasyBCD :smile:

Are you using EasyBCD 1.5 or 1.51? 1.51 introduces some enhancements to the handling of legacy operating systems.

I recommend deleting *all* Legacy Entries in the Bootloader with EasyBCD, then using the "Add/Remove Entries" screen to add Windows Server 2003.

Let me know if that works.
 
no, I still cant get it.

I copied boot.ini to both the drive for vista and 2k3.
this is contents of boot.ini, it is original, i have not changed anything yet:

Code:
[boot loader] 
timeout=30 
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS 
[operating systems] 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003, Enterprise" /NOEXECUTE=OPTOUT /FASTDETECT 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Longhorn" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT /USENEWLOADER /DETECTHAL

wind 2k3 is now on 3rd disk, partition 1, XP and x64 are now out, longhorn beta is also out now, only 2k3 left, but i figure the order is still right.

now when I can see the items from legacy windows menu retrieved from boot.ini, but when I click on it, I get this:

'"
<windows>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe

please reinstall copy of it.
"

any suggestions the problem here?
 
If it's on the 3rd disk, then your Boot.ini should say

Code:
[boot loader] 
timeout=30 
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS 
[operating systems] 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows Server 2003, Enterprise" /NOEXECUTE=OPTOUT /FASTDETECT 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Longhorn" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT /USENEWLOADER /DETECTHAL

Notice the change to the default entry.

One more thing. Are these RAID or SATA drives? If they're normal IDE ATA drives it should be the disk(x) that changes, not the rdisk().
 
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