Cant boot XP after installing SP3

AnimeMasta

AnimeMasta

Member
Hi, I have a dual boot setup with XP Home and Vista Premium. Last night I installed service pack 3 on XP and today when i tried to boot XP the computer just restarts. I've tried save mode and tried using last good configuration. Heres my debug info -

Code: 
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                 {00c24234-b017-11dc-a47c-001d60455afd}
resumeobject            {e62fcdb5-a063-11dc-b713-e9366ba202fc}
displayorder            {e62fcdb4-a063-11dc-b713-e9366ba202fc}
                        {00c24234-b017-11dc-a47c-001d60455afd}
toolsdisplayorder       {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout                 5

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {e62fcdb4-a063-11dc-b713-e9366ba202fc}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description             Microsoft Windows Vista
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
bootdebug               Yes
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {e62fcdb5-a063-11dc-b713-e9366ba202fc}
nx                      OptIn
pae                     ForceDisable
sos                     No
debug                   No

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier              {00c24234-b017-11dc-a47c-001d60455afd}
device                  partition=E:
path                    \NTLDR
description             Microsoft Windows Xp
Help would be appreciated.

Edit: At first the XP partition was set to C:, when it was set to that it would restart. I changed it to E: and now it says it cant load the file and it shows the path \NTLDR. Im guessing that's where my problem is.
 
Hi Masta, welcome to NST.
The information in Vista's BCD about XP, is where to find the XP boot files, not where XP is. The boot files contain the information about the location of the XP system .
Put the drive back the way it was. The path \NTLDR is correct too.
When you boot XP through Vista's bootmgr, it chains to the XP bootloader (NTLDR) to do the job.
When you select XP from the Vista bootloader, immediately hold down F8 until NTLDR executes and presents you with XP's "safe mode , last good config etc" menu.
Select "disable auto restart" and the XP boot should stop on the error instead of flashing back to the start again. Google on the error code, and if you don't understand what the problem with XP is from that, post back for more help.
 
Find ntdetect.com (Either at the root of XP or Vista's partition with Hidden Files shown and Operating System Files unhidden in folder options). Vista is probably your active partition, which is where ntdetect.com needs to be. If it is not there, XP well fail to boot and resets the machine.
 
Are the NTDETECT, NTLDR and the boot.ini files on the boot drive? Not necessarily the XP drive but the boot drive.

Can you take a screenshot of your Disk Management screen for us to figure out which is your boot drive for us to give you advice on where teh files should be located.
 
Here

DiskManagement.jpg
 
Vista (C:\) is the partition that should contain your 3 XP boot files, with boot.ini pointing to partition(3)(probably - unfortunately the order on the HDD is not always the same as the numbering sequence)
But I don't think you've got a boot problem as such, but a problem with your XP system once the boot process tries to load it.
I am at a loss as to how to diagnose it though if the disable auto restart isn't working. That's what it's there for, to enable you to force a stop on an error for diagnostic purposes.
 
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