EasyBCD v1.6 - can't boot in XP after reinstalling vista bootloader

V@no

V@no

Member
Hello!
I'm sorry if this has been covered already, at the moment I don't have time to do research...:shame:
Here is the scenario:
Have two hard drives, Vista was installed on second HDD, XP was installed on first (boot). Because XP was installed after Vista, the vista bootloader was deleted. Tryed run in XP EasyBCD, but after the program starts it would popup an error box about no boot drive found (or something simular). The attempts to rebuild Vista bootloader fails, with no error messages, it just not being installed. And if I tryed open "Configure Boot" menu, EasyBCD would crash. (By the way, vistabootpro program also fails to recreate vista bootloader)
Ok, I gave up on this and just ran fix boot from Vista's instalation DVD. For some reason, I had to do it and reboot 2-3 times, before it finaly fixes it, also, it removed ability boot into XP (no OS selection menu). After finaly booting in Vista, I ran EasyBCD, it started without error, and I manualy add XP to the OS selection list. After reboot, I could finaly choose the OS, but for some reason when I tryed boot in XP it wouldnt boot. It's just freezes before the "windows is loading" screen (just black screen). Though, if I press F8 right before it freezes, I can see the safe mode options as it should, yet, selecting either of them would freeze before the boot loading screen anyways..
After numberous times playing with FIXBOOT in recovery console and repeating the steps above, I found what causes it - EasyBCD! That's right, if I rebuild vista bootloader with vistabootpro, I have no problem booting in XP...
Have anyone experienced this?

Thanks!
 
Oh, I completly fogot about this topic...
The lattest version (1.61.0.21279) works great with reinstalling Vista boot from scratch.
However, I still not able to boot into XP after booting into Vista once.. I doubt it has anything to do with EasyBCD itself though.
Does anyone know what files being "fixed" by FIXBOOT and FIXMBR command in XP recovery console? perhaps knowing that I could trace the problem...
 
Hey V@no, glad to hear back from you.

Anyway, since the first post was more or less about EasyBCD not getting the bootloader to work, I'm not sure exactly where you are with your XP-Vista dual-boot.

Can we start from scratch: you tell me what you tried and what you need?
 
Well, the problem is the same as before exept now its neared down to Vista related.
Basicaly whenever I boot in Vista, I'm not longer able to boot in XP on dual-boot system. Computer freezes right after I select XP in boot menu and hit enter. Though I can access XP's save boot menu by F8 (right after I hit enter to start XP), but using any options freezes computer.
I have to do FIXBOOT in XP recovery console, that removes Vista bootloader, then I can start XP, install vista bootloader with EBCD. After that (with boot menu for xp and vista) I can boot in XP as many times as I want to, until I once boot into Vista.
Perhaps because I use XP hard drive for paging file on vista and Vista's hard drive for paging file on XP (experimenting with perfomance) it could cause this...other then that I have no clue what could be the problem...
 
Just let you know I found what caused it.
For some reason Vista does something to boot drive if it's installed on other drive and you move paging file to the boot drive.
After I moved paging files in XP and Vista to the same drive the OS is installed on, everything is fixed now. Go figure..
 
Wow, that's a weird bug - first I heard of it.

You are right about the performance though - it's recommended for the paging file to be on different physical disk than the OS itself - I always used to do that with multiple XPs without a problem.
 
I can confirm that this bug/feature exists.

Both vista and xp on own drives, each sees itself installed on c:\ and the other os as d:\.

Setup works 100%

So like MS recommend, OS drive and Page on diff drives, make the changes in xp, reboot, all works fine, Vista and XP. Make the changes on Vista and bang, no xp boot, just blank screen.

Spent hours trying to work out what the problem was, rebuilding the mbr's many times to no avail. I then went back over all the changes I had made since it was last working and remembered the paging files... typical Microsoft weirdness.

Anyways, works fine again now. XP page on vista drive, vista page on vista drive.

Cheers

Mikasa
 
I'll let our contact at Microsoft now about this, it sounds like a really serious (not to mention frustrating!) bug!!

If/When I get a reply I'll be sure to post back. Just maybe they'll be able to fix it in Windows XP SP3, though I highly doubt they'll actually do anything about it, esp. given how rare it is....
 
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