Dual booting bootloader won't load at startup

S

steam03

Member
I have one HDD with 4 partitions. I am struggling to get dual boot to work.

Partition 1 (ACTIVE). Normal data files (Contains boot.ini, ntldr files, etc)
Partition 2. VISTA Business 64bit
Partition 3. Normal data files
Partition 4. XP Pro 32bit

I followed the wiki EASYBCD site to try and setup a Vista boot loader at startup for a dual boot option but when I startup, it just goes straight into XP skipping the Vista boot loader. What is wrong with my setup? Do I need to relocate or recode the boot.ini?

My boot.ini is as follows:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional partition 4" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

My BCD looks like this:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=C:
default {bde96c4d-8b05-11de-abe0-b51543149b81}
displayorder {bde96c4d-8b05-11de-abe0-b51543149b81}
{bde96c4e-8b05-11de-abe0-b51543149b81}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {bde96c4d-8b05-11de-abe0-b51543149b81}
device partition=D:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows Vista Business
osdevice partition=D:
systemroot \Windows

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {bde96c4e-8b05-11de-abe0-b51543149b81}
device partition=F:
path \NTLDR
description Microsoft Windows XP

Please direct me what to do next. I don't have the guts to play around with system files anymore.


Side questions: Can I relocate the boot.ini, etc files to somewhere closer to the OS so I won't accidently format my C: (Active but used as data storage) partition and screwing up bootups?

Can I still assign Active to other partitions if this would do the trick?
 
Set the Vista partition "active"
Boot the Vista DVD, "repair your computer", "startup repair"
Do the above line 3 times.
Boot from the HDD. You should be in Vista.
Install EasyBCD 2.0 latest build, add an entry for XP, accept the offer to auto-configure.
 
You can download one that will do the job from here.
It's by far the easiest way if you don't know exactly what you're trying to do or how to do it.
The CD will fix the boot automatically, and EasyBCD 2 will configure the dual-boot automatically.
No prior-knowledge necessary.
(and it's a useful addition to your IT toolkit for future emegencies)
 
Last edited:
Terry60 said:
You can download one that will do the job from here.
It's by far the easiest way if you don't know exactly what you're trying to do or how to do it.
The CD will fix the boot automatically, and EasyBCD 2 will configure the dual-boot automatically.
No prior-knowledge necessary.
(and it's a useful addition to your IT toolkit for future emegencies)
Click to expand...
Thanks. For some reason, I cann't load the download page for 64bit. Will it be a torrent file or a direct download?
 
It's a link to a torrent for which you'll need a torrent handling app as mentioned in the link(s) below the main download link(s).
You can use Opera browser, which will handle torrents natively as part of its built-in download manager.
 
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