Help Edit Boot WIN7/XP

C

craigconwater

Member
Here is my setup:
Was running XP on little 50GB HDD, cloned it to nice big'ol 500GB. Pulled the 50GB and set it aside. Installed the 500GB cloned XP, made sure it worked perfectly and it does. So I then upgraded to WIN7 Home Premium. Got WIN7 up and running just great. At this point my boot loader looked like this:
Previous Version of Windows
Windows 7
Recovery Console (I'll delete this later at some point, but it doesn't bother me one bit for now)

So everything has been going great for a couple days. Of course, now I get greedy and I added back the 50GB XP HDD to the computer (as a slave - master is the 500gb). Installed EasyBCD 1.7.2 (I realize now the beta exists now that I am a newbie member), added an entry for Windows XP, pointed to my 50GB drive letter ( E: ) and rebooted.

All I am getting is the error: "A Disk Read Error Has Occurred... cntrl-alt-delete to reboot"

What do I do? I think I need to point to a more exact point instead of just the drive letter ( E: ). Do I need to use the Boot Editor to edit the path? Is this right? What should I be point to in the drive? What exactly?

Many thanks for the help.... Here is a copy of my BCDEDIT if it helps below:

Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {fc9435e2-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
displayorder {ntldr}
{current}
{fc9435e6-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30
Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {ntldr}
device partition=C:
path \ntldr
description Previous Version of Windows
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {fc9435e4-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {fc9435e2-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
nx OptIn
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {fc9435e6-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
device partition=E:
path \NTLDR
description Windows XP

Addendum:

Done some good reading. Went ahead and downloaded EasyBCD 2.0 latest build. (uninstalled 1.7.2)
Deleted the XP entry (that I added) from the BCD
Added it again
Let Easy2 auto-configure the XP boot when it offers (couldn't help notice it automatically determines that my XP is on my C drive, but mine is on E - Could it be auto finding the previous windows - I didnt delete that).
Hoping it will fix my boot.ini for me, I changed the settings under Entry-Based Settings to my E Drive.

Rebooted and picked Windows XP to boot and got same error:
"A Disk Read Error Has Occurred... cntrl-alt-delete to reboot"

Addendum:

Reading some more: Maybe has to due with Disk Management, but I don't want to start messing around with settings until I get some opinions, help, ideas, etc.... going to bed!
 
Last edited:
Hi Craig.
Use EasyBCD 2.0 latest build
Delete both XP entries
Add a new one, accept the offer to auto-configure.
EasyBCD will create a boot.ini with 2 XPs.
You choose between them in the NTLDR (second) boot menu.
You can't have 2 XP entries in the BCD because the BCD doesn't point to XP. It points to the XP boot files which have to be in the "system" partition, and they (boot.ini) point to XP(s).
 
Hi Terry,

You really had me excited. Sounded so simple, but it did not work.

I deleted both XP entries, added the new one, accepting the auto configure (but EasyBCD shows it only created one XP). Thinking it might be something in the boot screen (because you said second boot menu - which I havent seen before) that will show two, I rebooted, chose XP and got the same error: "A Disk Read Error Has Occurred... cntrl-alt-delete to reboot".

You said, "It points to the XP boot files which have to be in the "system" partition, and they (boot.ini) point to XP(s)." Can you look at my screen shot? I am thinking because the XP that I want to boot is on a different drive than windows7, that might be a problem. I have been reading about users saying something about "system" partition. My screen shot might reveal my answer, but I am not seeing it.

Addendum:

The answer seems like it is in my disk management. Can you help me?
 
Last edited:
Is the old HDD IDE, and the new one SATA ?
Why did you jumper the old HDD as "slave".
If you've only got one IDE, it should be "master"
 
First IDE cable - I got windows 7 on 500gb (master) and storage 300gb (slave) on the same IDE cable.

Second IDE cable - have the old windows xp on 50gb (slave).

All PATA, not SATA. I could swap storage and xp drive on the cables and make the xp drive cable select. Will that change anything though? Won't EasyBCD still auto-find the c drive for XP? It seems to me it's not finding XP on the E drive.

Addendum:

All PATA/IDE and definitely not SATA (not even the new one).
 
Last edited:
First of all, EasyBCD is correct. Your "system" "active" partition (C) is Win 7, and that is the partition that contains all the boot files for both systems. Don't keep playing around with the drive letter the XP entry in the BCD is pointing at. That will get you nowhere.
boot.ini (the file which you can find in the root of the C: partition) is what points to the XP on E.

I suppose it could do no harm for you to go ahead, and post the contents of the boot.ini.
Before you will be able to see it though, you will need to show hidden files and folders, and unhide protected system files in the Folder Options in the Control Panel.
It could be Easy made a mistake, and made the boot.ini point at the wrong HDD (your storage one, for example)...

@Terry: His clone XP was upgraded to Win 7, he said, so that means he only has one XP (not 2).
 
Last edited:
He's trying to add the original XP back as a second XP Jake.

Craig.
put the old HDD on the secondary IDE channel as "master".
You'll get problems having a HDD on an IDE as slave with no master.
Don't be confused by the word
MASTER doesn't have anything to do with boot sequence, it's an old-fashioned terminology implying a dominance which hasn't existed since early DOS.
master/slave just means disk0/disk1
You've got a 0,0, a 0,1 and a 1,1 without a 1,0
I think that's causing the disk read error.
 
So I missed something...
Primary IDE Channel:
(M) 500GB WesternDigital WIN7
(S) 320GB WD - Storage, scratch disks
On the secondary IDE channel:
(M) DVDRW
(S) 50GB Seagate WINXP

I forgot to say there is a DVDRW drive on the secondary IDE channel set as Master.

I wasn't sure about making the 50GB Master, but I did and I unplugged the DVD recorder just to be safe. Reboot with these settings (DVDRW - removed):
Primary IDE Channel:
(M) 500GB WesternDigital WIN7
(S) 320GB WD - Storage, scratch disks
On the secondary IDE channel:
(M) 50GB Seagate WINXP

And saw this:
INTEL BOOT AGENT VERSION 3.0.03
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM
then went black and then... got BOOT FAILURE: System Halted

No luck.

So, I went ahead and yanked the drives to this setup:
Primary IDE Channel:
(M) 500GB WesternDigital WIN7
(M) 50GB Seagate WINXP
On the secondary IDE channel:
(M) DVDRW
(S) 320GB Storage, scratch

Didn't like it I guess, same error:
INTEL BOOT AGENT VERSION 3.0.03
PXE-E61: Media Test Failure, check cable
PXE-M0F: Exiting Intel PXE ROM
then went black and then... got BOOT FAILURE: System Halted

Got everything working again by using this setup (primary - changed 50GB back to slave and secondary - resetting DVDRW to M and 320GB to S):
Primary IDE Channel:
(M) 500GB WesternDigital WIN7
(S) 50GB Seagate WINXP
On the secondary IDE channel:
(M) DVDRW
(S) 320GB Storage, scratch

Booted back up and tried EasyBCD using the auto settings above (deleted XP first and added, noted EasyBCD still sees XP as C drive during auto-setup). Restarted still can't boot XP. Says the same error that we keep seeing from the start.

Do I need to change the BIOS so the Intel Boot Agent doesn't start up? I am thinking BIOS settings now that I can't boot with two masters on the same IDE channel. I will repost Disk Management settings and Boot setup.

Addendum:

New BCDEDIT:Microsoft Windows [Version 6.1.7600]
Copyright (c) 2009 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.
C:\Windows\system32>bmdedit
'bmdedit' is not recognized as an internal or external command,
operable program or batch file.
C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {fc9435e2-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
displayorder {current}
{fc9435eb-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {fc9435e4-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {fc9435e2-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
nx OptIn
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {fc9435eb-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
device partition=C:
path \NTLDR
description Microsoft Windows XP
 
Last edited:
Coolname007 said:
First of all, EasyBCD is correct. Your "system" "active" partition (C) is Win 7, and that is the partition that contains all the boot files for both systems. Don't keep playing around with the drive letter the XP entry in the BCD is pointing at. That will get you nowhere.
boot.ini (the file which you can find in the root of the C: partition) is what points to the XP on E.

I suppose it could do no harm for you to go ahead, and post the contents of the boot.ini.
Before you will be able to see it though, you will need to show hidden files and folders, and unhide protected system files in the Folder Options in the Control Panel.
It could be Easy made a mistake, and made the boot.ini point at the wrong HDD (your storage one, for example)...

@Terry: His clone XP was upgraded to Win 7, he said, so that means he only has one XP (not 2).
Click to expand...

I went through looking for the boot.ini file. Must be different way of locating it in WIN7. Did the whole, see hidden files, run: sysdm.cpl, and can't edit or copy it for that matter. Where is it in WIN7?
 
As I said before Craig, master just means disk0.
It follows that you can't jumper two disk0s on the same channel without causing a error.
When I used to use IDE drives, I jumpered everything as "cable select". That way you can't make mistakes. The device takes its identity (0/1) from the connector you use (black/grey) and you can move things around without needing to rejumper everything.
The E61 message concerns me.
Do you have a spare 80 strand IDE cable you can try, in case the error is purely one of the physical connection being bad.
(you can always try swapping the 2 IDE cables and see if the problem moves to the other channel with the cable)
 
Terry,

Took off all the jumpers, and set them all to cable select, and made all the drives on the primary IDE "cable select".

Started WIN7, ran EASYBCD, deleted old XP, added new XP with auto-select. Restart and got the same error trying to boot winXP:
"A Disk Read Error Has Occurred... cntrl-alt-delete to reboot"

Does it matter that I have Windows.old still in the C drive? Because this was an upgrade of WIN7 from XP. Is that a possible source? I just keep thinking that the old XP on E drive is not getting selected by EasyBCD. It keeps auto-chosing C drive to boot XP.

Thanks for all the help Terry and others....

Justin - I would try EasyBCD -> Tools -> Edit Legacy Entries.... but I don't like messing with stuff I don't know what I am doing. Can you elaborate? What do I change exactly?


Addendum:


And, it is still defaulting to C drive when I am trying to boot XP on E drive.
 
Last edited:
It's supposed to point to C: (or more precisely to "system")
The BCD does not point to XP. It points to copies of the XP boot files. They point to XP(s) (via C:\boot.ini)
Can you post the current state of the BCD debug mode and the contents of C:\boot.ini

Have you tried a different IDE cable ? Or swapping them over if you don't have a spare ?
I just want you to ascertain whether the problem stays put or moves with the cable.
 
craigconwater said:
Justin - I would try EasyBCD -> Tools -> Edit Legacy Entries.... but I don't like messing with stuff I don't know what I am doing. Can you elaborate? What do I change exactly?
Click to expand...

Hello, Craig. That option opens up your boot.ini file, so you can copy over the contents of it into your next post. :wink: That's all it does...
It does not change anything. It only allows you to edit the contents of the boot.ini, should you need to, or as in this case, to copy the contents of it into your post, so we can take a look at it.

EDIT:

And by "Tools", Justin meant the Tools menu in EasyBCD.
 
Last edited:
With the pins on cable select, I get this error: "A Disk Read Error Has Occurred... cntrl-alt-delete to reboot"

Tried a new cable, reboot, delete, add new XP, restart and I get: "A Disk Read Error Has Occurred... cntrl-alt-delete to reboot".

The other error (making two masters on one IDE cable) seems to be gone.

EasyBCD Debug Contents Below:
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 {fc9435e3-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
resumeobject {fc9435e2-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
displayorder {fc9435e3-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
{fc9435ee-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
{fc9435ef-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 60
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {fc9435e3-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {fc9435e4-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {fc9435e2-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
nx OptIn
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {fc9435ee-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
device partition=C:
path \NTLDR
description Windows XP
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {fc9435ef-c123-11de-a8a2-a09f45c8592c}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume5
path \NTLDR
description Microsoft Windows XP


Addendum:


Strange, I was in the middle of posting this and the site crashes. Thought it got attached. Here it is. Sorry for any double posts.

And here is the Boot using EasyBCD -> Tools -> Edit Legacy Entries

;
;Warning: Boot.ini is used on Windows XP and earlier operating systems.
;Warning: Use BCDEDIT.exe to modify Windows Vista boot options.
;
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=c:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT
[operating systems]
c:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /CMDCONS

Thanks again all!
 
Last edited:
That boot.ini is not one created by EasyBCD 2.0, and you shouldn't have 2 XP entries in the BCD.

Go back to my 1st reply - post #3
 
Sorry, I was messing around this morning and added another XP to try and point to E drive. It didn't work and I forgot to delete it before posting that info. When there is one XP and one WIN7, I get the error.

I will look at post #3 to figure out how to copy the boot.ini properly for you. And, will repost confirming the error with one XP.

Sorry about the confusion.
 
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