Cannot dual boot into WinXP

MrFizzbin

Member
Greetings all. This is my first post here. Was wondering if you can assist me. Here is the situation.
I have win 7 64 installed on a single SSD drive.
I want to install winXP/SP3 to run some legacy hardware.
I intended to raid a couple of drives and install winXP to it, but ran into a few issues. So I decided to install those two Sata drives in a non-raid setup.
Now, the Bios set one of those drives as the second bood drive (as opposed to my Win 7 SSD drive. (The first boot drive is of course my DVD drive). I didn't spot this until it was too late. I installed winXP without any issues, but of course it sees this drive a the C drive, and didn't overight the bootloader files on my Win 7 instalation.

(In any case, I did previously try to install WinXP on a seperate HD but it would never get fully installed, as whenever the instalation re-boots to run the set-up, I would get an error message, and continuing the installation was impossible.)

So.. back to where we were...
I changed the boot order so my Win 7 on the SSD and can boot without any issues. I run EasyBCD and it adds WinXP to the boot choices, but when I try to select Win XP, I get an error message.
So....my question is: what can I do to get WinXP to run?
-Go back and change the boot order to WinXP's HD and run EasyBCD from there?
-Edit the boot.ini file that EasyBCD creates on the win 7 SSD drive?
-Or some other solution.

I have made backup images of my win 7 drive as well as my win XP drive with Acronis as a safety measure, so it's not an issue to getting back to my original setup.

Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

Addendum:

Thought I'd add some additional information:

The error message I get when I try to boot to Win XP is the following:
"Invalid Boot.ini file
Booting from c:\windows\NTDETECT failed.

The Boot.ini file created by EasyBCD:

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP on G:\" /fastdetect

The Boot.ini created by rhe Windows XP instalation:
[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="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer
 
Last edited:
Thanks for your reply, Terry60. As per your request:
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
resumeobject {5f56314c-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
displayorder {5f56314d-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 10
displaybootmenu Yes
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {5f56314d-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {5f56314e-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {5f56314c-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
nx OptIn
 
There's no XP entry in the BCD.
Did you delete it after adding it ? (or forget to click the "add" button)
Add it again, let EasyBCD auto configure, and don't change what it sets up.
Then if it still doesn't work, post the view settings again.
 
Oh crap: ... i just realized I deleted the XP entry and thus sent you the details of just Win 7.. It's been one of those days..... I'm at work right now, but as soon as i get home, I will edit my above post.. Sorry about that!


Addendum:


Here you go:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {5f56314d-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
resumeobject {5f56314c-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
displayorder {5f56314d-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
{4fbc841d-f34c-11e0-bd37-0015f2f4979f}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 10
displaybootmenu Yes
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {5f56314d-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {5f56314e-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {5f56314c-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
nx OptIn
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {4fbc841d-f34c-11e0-bd37-0015f2f4979f}
device partition=C:
path \NST\ntldr
description Microsoft Windows XP
 
Last edited:
As mentioned in my initial post:

The error message I get when I try to boot to Win XP is the following:
"Invalid Boot.ini file
Booting from c:\windows\NTDETECT failed.
 
Sorry, missed the addendum.
Which version of EasyBCD are you using ?
All of the XP boot files should be automatically generated since 2.0
Can you post a screenshot of Disk Management as detailed in the sticky
 
Linux on an NTFS partition ?
Your EasyBCD generated boot.ini, says "...on G", which would seem to indicate that you are letting PnP detection dictate your letter allocation and that you've moved the XP drive relative to Linux in the interim.
Delete the XP entry and add it again, and the auto detection should find it on E and generate the correct arc paths.
 
Terry .. That "Linux" partition is empty. It's to potentially add Linux-Ubuntu .. But one problem at a time! So do not pay any attention to it.

I'll do what you suggested, but I've do it before with the same results.

As a side note:
I'm going from memory here, as I am at work, so the details might be a bit off... I went into EasyBDC and directed the WinXP entry specifically to the E drive. What happened upon reboot and select WinXP was there was an error message saying could not boot Win XP because of a corrupt or missing file..(NTLDR I think..not 100%. sure...? don't remember exactly). The error message goes on to say that I should insert my WinXP install disk , select the correct language and then select "repair".. Once again, I am going from memory, so don't quote me on this. I ended up doing a complete install, BUT DID NOT format ..left existing files. It was able to do a complete install. Remember that whenever I tried in the past to install WinXP that wasn't the default boot hard drive identified in my Bios, the install would fail at the first time it reboots during install. So I never was able to get a complete install that way. I WAS able to get a complete install if I set the drive that I was installing WinXP to as the default first boot hard drive in my Bios. iUpon reboot I had 2 WinXP to chose from, but no Win 7... I have since restored the drive as it was when I reported the problem via a image backup. So...back to square one as reported in my first post.. The above may or may not be relavent, just thought I would mention it in case it was..
 
Don't change what EasyBCD sets up. An XP BCD entry doesn't point to XP, it points to the "system" partition containing the boot.ini file which in turn points to XP.
 
Terry,

Thanks for your persistence.

I did make changes, but always removed them and re-entered an entry for XP .
I'll do as you suggested and report back.

ps., Did the fact that I had the drive where WinXP installed to was set as the 1st default boot drive in my Bios, screw things up?

Addendum:

Terry,

Did as you recommended: Deleted the XP entry, saved, rebooted, added back the XP entry
easybcd.jpg


Actually did it three times to be sure. Got the exact same results:
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {5f56314d-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {5f56314e-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {5f56314c-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
nx OptIn
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {4fbc8422-f34c-11e0-bd37-0015f2f4979f}
device partition=C:
path \NST\ntldr
description Microsoft Windows XP


I'm also including an image of the boot.ini file that EasyBCD generated in my Boot drive (Win7).

easybcdbootini.jpg



What we try next?
 
Last edited:
Can you try again using the latest Beta.
The arc path is showing XP on your 3rd HDD, but Disk Management shows it as top of the pile.
Do you still have it set as the primary boot HDD ?
If so set the SSD at the top.
If you still have problems, no doubt CG will want you to run bootgrabber and look at the output to see if you have a corrupted partition table somewhere.
 
Terry,

-I open up my rig and connected the SSD drive (Default boot drive), on first Sata connection (1) and the Hard drive that has WinXP on Sata 6.
-The SSD drive is now sitting on top of the pack (See image below for confirmation).


-I tried the Beta version of EasyBCD, but got same Error msg at boot for WindowsXP ("Invalid Boot.ini file
Booting from c:\windows\NTDETECT failed."

-Here are the detailed Settings:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {5f56314d-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
resumeobject {5f56314c-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
displayorder {5f56314d-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
{4fbc8427-f34c-11e0-bd37-0015f2f4979f}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 10
displaybootmenu Yes
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {5f56314d-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {5f56314e-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {5f56314c-3411-11e0-a0f7-d9fe95335307}
nx OptIn
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {4fbc8427-f34c-11e0-bd37-0015f2f4979f}
device partition=C:
path \NST\ntldr
description Microsoft Windows XP

-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-


So, where do we go from here?


-==== Who's "CG"? ====-
 
It doesn't matter which SATA channel things are connected to. It's the sequence in the BIOS setup program's "boot" section, in the HDD sub-section I was referring to.
 
As mentioned previously, the first boot device is the Win7 OS on the SSD drive.
The drive which hosts the winXP instalation is at the bottom of the order and is the last drive.
Have we exhaused all our options here?
You mentioned maybe it's due to a corrupt partition: You have any suggestion how to check into this (Specific application).

Thanks in advance.
 
I'm joining the party. Invalid boot.ini, booting c:\windows... which leads to ntoskrnl.exe failure, as c:\windows is Windows 7. Whatever your software is doing, it seems to be breaking more than fixing at the moment.

And no, I wont be able to provide details as there's no working OS to boot into.
 
Man, I feel your pain.. although I'm in a somewhat better position.. If I need to boor to my WinXP OS, I can change the hard drive boot priority in my Bios.. but obviously that's not what I want to do, nor what EasyBCD offers.
 
Back
Top