HELP restore Vista XP after Windows 7 install

E

edgar5453

Member
Hello,

I have three drives which consist of one that has Vista, another with XP and
just recently i installed Windows 7 on the other drive. After installing
Windows 7, and tinkering around with it i decided to get back to Vista to
work on somethings. i went to my BIOS and changed my drive to boot to the
Vista drive, but i would get a message that states to use a drive that is
bootable or insert media to boot from. i reverted back to windows 7 and i
noticed both my XP and Vista drives didn't have a drive letter and wasn't
assessible even after attempting to rescan drives. I then attempted to boot
to my XP drive, but the same message was prompted. Now i'm concerned that the
install must of some how messed with both my OS's and am stuck on getting
them to boot.

Since i had some space on my Vista drive i inserted my Vista installer, and
noticed when given the option to pick a drive/partition to install the OS in
it recognized the drives/names of both my XP and Vista partitions
(Vista=Phatcat XP=Fatcat), which leads me to believe that they are still
there, but for some reason unaccessible.

So I reinstalled Vista on the second half of the same drive, with the non
functioning Vista. I was also able to get all three OS's to show up during the
boot up using the OEM Vista disk, but only the new Vista and Windows 7 load up properly. The original
Windows Vista gets to the loading bar and then you hear the disk spinning,
but then restarts.

I loaded easybcd to review boot log and recognize the partitions and
noticed that Vista has a C drive and Windows 7 has F,which are available under My
computer, but my old Vista has \Device\HarddiskVolume3. Any thoughts on how to access
that partition to perform a chkdsk or rebuild possbily the bootloader on
that partition? Or maybe it needs to be assigned a drive letter?

There are a total of 3 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 5 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista
Entry #1
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: Windows 7 Ultimate (recovered)
BCD ID: {eae036b3-e35c-11dd-b54e-83faf3dc47c1}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #3
Name: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (recovered)
BCD ID: {eae036b4-e35c-11dd-b54e-83faf3dc47c1}
Drive: \Device\HarddiskVolume3
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Name: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (recovered)
BCD ID: {eae036b4-e35c-11dd-b54e-83faf3dc47c1}
Drive: \Device\HarddiskVolume3
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
 
Last edited:
edgar5453, welcome to NST

Disconnect your Windows 7 drive, make sure your Vista drive is the primary boot device in the BIOS. Boot from a Vista DVD/recovery disc and do startup repair a few times until Vista is booting. If there isn't an entry for XP copy over ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini from XP's partition to Vistas' and add an entry for XP using EasyBCD. Verify the new entry is pointing to Vista's partition and edit the copied boot.ini's rdisk(x) values to say rdisk(1).

If you'd like to fix your XP drive as well so that you can boot from it on its own in the event you need to, disconnect Vista's drive so XPs' is the only connected, boot from an XP disc, enter the recovery console, and enter "fixboot" and "fixmbr". Reboot and verify it boots into XP correctly than reattach Vista's drive and make it the primary boot device in the BIOS again.
 
kairozamorro,

Thanks for the response! I disconnected the drive that has Windows 7 and attempted a startup repair on the my original Vista. When it locates for OS's it shows Location as (Unknown) Phatcat, and the new Vista install i partitioned on the same drive(200GB allocated for the Unknown Phatcat and 100GB allocated to thsi new Vista Install) which i'm using to write you guys :grinning:. I'm not very clear what you are trying to have me do after that. Currently i'm looking to only get my old(Phatcat) Vista up and running XP I'll handle seperatly. Now easybcd shows:

There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 5 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista
Entry #1
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (recovered)
BCD ID: {eae036b4-e35c-11dd-b54e-83faf3dc47c1}
Drive: \Device\HarddiskVolume1
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

How do i get Entry #2 to be recognized as a drive letter or hwo do i get to it since it shows Drive: \Device\HarddiskVolume1? I'm not very familiar with easybcd so if there is a particualr setting or function that coudl help rebuild entry #2 i'd really apprecaite! :smile:

Edgar
 
In EasyBCD you should be able to change the letter of the second entry to the correct place. If you can't for some reason, replace X: in the following command with the correct drive letter for the second instance of Vista:

Code: 
bcdedit /set {eae036b4-e35c-11dd-b54e-83faf3dc47c1} device partition=X:
 
kairozamorro,

I tried the syntac you mentioned using both easybcd power console and cmd on the DVD Vista Recovery. Is there anothe rlocation i should be attempting to run the syntacs or add to afile? i also noticed that i have

Problem Signature 01 External Media
"" 02 6.0.6000.16386.5.1.26.0.2180
""03 6
"" 04 1179666
"" 05 Bad Patch
"" 06 Nad Patch

From my google search the bad patches come from a possible bad Windows update. IF there is only a way to recover my My Docs form this screwed up Vista install...
 
You could try system restore to counteract any bad updates, but can't guarantee it'll fix the boot. As far as rescuing files you should be able to copy them over to another partition using your install of Vista that is working or XP. If you can't do that than boot from a recovery disc/vista dvd and use xcopy to copy your files or get an Ubuntu live cd so you can copy them over in a GUI. Reformat the bad apples partition, and re-install. Hopefully in the proccess it should pick up on the other Vista/XP and add it to the menu for you.
 
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