HELP! I screwed up my Dual Boot w/ Windows 7 install

R

Razer

Member
I will try to give all the details, maybe it will help:

My PC has 2 drives but drive
1) The C: was partitioned into
- C: which had the preinstalled VISTA and
- a smaller D: partition for recovery.
2) I installed XP on the second drive, I think named E: now due to the partitioning.

Everything was fine to dual boot after using easy bcd.

MY MISTAKE & WHERE I LOST IT
- I installed Windows 7 Ultimate completly wiping clean the C: drive and its recovery partition. I sipped Champaign and rejoiced w/ win 7!
- I reboot to try XP and noticed that was no longer an option
- I used Easy BCD to reselect that there should be to options and reboot
- I now have the option to boot Windows 7 or XP
BUT
when I select XP I receive the following error

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software changemight be the cause blah blah blah
File: \NTLDR
Status 0x000000f
Info: The Selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.


My guess. When I celebrated and wiped my C: drive of the evil Vista OS I messed up the naming of the drives where XP used to be E: but has now become D: my guess is NTLDR and the associated boot.ini is missing because of this. Furthermore, even if I could point it to the files, the boot.ini file may also be incorrect because it would be trying to get the information from the wrong location.

AM I RIGHT and HOW DO I FIX THIS?

Help please
:x

Windows 7, dual boot, windows xp, ntldr, issue, problem, troubleshoot

Addendum:

btw,

Windows 7 Ultimate on the c: drive is a 64bit OS while my Windows XP Pro on the seperate HDD d: is 32bit.

Not sure if that changes anything. Now someone help! If I can load into Windows 7, how do I fix is so when I select XP in the boot menu I don't keep getting that

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software changemight be the cause blah blah blah
File: \NTLDR
Status 0x000000f
Info: The Selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.

P.S. it seems a lot of people have this issue as I have been searching these forums.
 
Last edited:
Download EasyBCD 2.0 latest build (don't use 1.7)
Install it in W7
add/remove
delete the XP entry
add it again
accept the offer to auto-configure
don't change the drive assigned to XP - EasyBCD knows what it's doing.
 
Hey Terry, Thanks for the response.

I followed your directions to a T, yet the same error occurs. :frowning: I tried it 3 times and then had someone else watch me follow your directions to make sure I wasn't messing up and still same error. Thoughts?
 
Post a screenshot of your W7 disk management and copy/paste the "display settings" output from EasyBCD in detailed(debug) mode.
 
WOO HOO! Got it and here's how. Hopefully it will help someone

first follow Terry60's steps

- Download EasyBCD 2.0 latest build (don't use 1.7)
- Install it in W7
- add/remove
- delete the XP entry
- add it again
- accept the offer to auto-configure
- don't change the drive assigned to XP - EasyBCD knows what it's doing.

Then while in Windows 7 search for and find the following XP files on the drive windows XP is located in
1) ntdetect
2) ntldr
3) boot.ini

copy and paste them to the root directory of the disk drive XP is on. Mine were buried deep with subfolders.

In other words, since windows 7 was on my C and XP on my D, I found them deep inside the D drive and copied them over straight to the root of D.

Then

The solution is as simple as:
1) go back into easy BCD
2) Change Settings -> Entry-Based -> choose XP from the list, change drive (and name?) -> Save Settings

I changed my drive to D and thus it knew where to find the files I copied over.

Thanks everyone
:smile:
 
Weird...
That shouldn't have happened. :wtf:
Is your D: drive "system" according to Disk Management?
Usually Easybcd determines correctly which partition is "system" and creates those XP files in the root of that partition, in which case Terry's instructions would have worked perfectly without any need for further steps.
 
Can you upload the information I asked for in my last post.
You've done exactly the wrong thing. (that's why EasyBCD tries to stop you)
We need to see what's going on in your system that makes it work by doing what should break it.

Please don't post this as a "solution" to XP boot problems. You've lucked in to a weird hybrid boot, and chances are that future changes to your system will break it again.
99% of people following your advice will break the boot. (we need to find what puts you in the other 1%)
 
i have the same problem with dual booting xp and win 7.
i have installed esaybcd, but its not auto configuring. i want to try the manual method but i cant find the root directory.

quote: "copy and paste them to the root directory of the disk drive XP is on."

please tell me to which folder i should paste the ntldr, ntdetect and boot. ini.

i have win 7 in c: and xp in F:
 
Hi Druid, welcome to NST
Did W7 install with an unlettered partition (marked "system" "active" in Disk Management) ?
If so, give it a letter, delete the XP entry from the BCD, add it again and let it auto-configure.
If not, read the last point in the sticky thread and post the Disk Management and "view settings" information
 
You only have one primary partition. That's where all the boot files have to be. You cannot boot a logical partition. You can install an OS (from XP SP2 onwards) into one, but you can't boot it from there, The MBR looks for the "active" primary partition. (A logical drive cannnot be active)
Set folder options like this, and check what files are already on C:\
 
Hi Terry,

You are great; your advice is worked for me.

First time it was not working; then I seen your few post below saying “Did W7 install with an unlettered partition (marked "system" "active" in Disk Management) ?”

In my case that was true; I given a letter and I followed the same steps what you given.
It works;

Thanks a lot
Alagu
 
Last edited:
Terry60 said:
Hi Druid, welcome to NST
Did W7 install with an unlettered partition (marked "system" "active" in Disk Management) ?
If so, give it a letter, delete the XP entry from the BCD, add it again and let it auto-configure.
If not, read the last point in the sticky thread and post the Disk Management and "view settings" information
Click to expand...

I just wanted to say thanks for this post, you saved me big time with this one.

Worked perfectly, Great post!!!!!
 
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