Hopefully an easy Vista/XP Dual Boot

Ok, this should be pretty easy for you guys

I have 1 250 GIG Hard Drive

I have 10 gig for XP

The rest for Vista

My machine always boots to Vista, never to XP

In Vista

the Vista partition is C:

and the XP partition is D:

I can not figure this out what's so ever.

So if anyone could give me a clue on how to do this?

Thanks a bunch!

Oh, i'm not sure if this needs to be noted, but I did install XP first, and then Vista second. And no boot loader shows up on the screen when the PC boots, it just goes right into Vista

Thanks again!
 
Hi thegame, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies.

Grab yourself a copy of EasyBCD 1.7.
Install
Run
EasyBCD | Add/Remove | Windows XP | Add Entry

Reboot, viola! all done!
 
Ok, I did that, and when I went to boot into XP, I got an NTLDR error

Here is the output from EasyBCD

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: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {4cedf61d-5e3f-11dc-b7bf-0013d4fdef5c}
Drive: Active Boot Partition
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

and here is the detailed view

Code:
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 {e8709fb6-fa5f-11db-be4d-e219ece5282e}
displayorder {e8709fb6-fa5f-11db-be4d-e219ece5282e}
{4cedf61d-5e3f-11dc-b7bf-0013d4fdef5c}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 5
 
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {e8709fb6-fa5f-11db-be4d-e219ece5282e}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {e8709fb7-fa5f-11db-be4d-e219ece5282e}
nx OptOut
 
Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {4cedf61d-5e3f-11dc-b7bf-0013d4fdef5c}
device boot
path \NTLDR
description Microsoft Windows XP


And again, in Vista, Vista shows up as C:, and XP shows up as D:

Thanks for the help!
 
Computer Guru,

I put ntldr, and ntdetect on both the C: and D: partition.

I then went to boot into XP, and it gave me a boot.ini error.

I went through all steps that were listed, and still could not get XP to load.

I then went to the Repair feature of XP, and it would the repair reinstall option was not there, which I have never seen happen.

Any idea what could be wrong?

Thanks again for all the help

Ok, I boot ntldr, and ntdetect, and the boot.ini file I created in both the xp and vista partition.

And then when I tried to get into XP, it told me I was missing ntoskrnl.exe
 
I hate to bother you again with another post, however, I need to get into my XP partition by tommorow night to do some business.

If worse comes to worse, and we dont have this fixed by then, could I use Acronis Disc Director to set the XP partition as the active drive, so that is what it boots from?

I am very sorry for asking all these questions, I just never knew how confusing this all would be.
 
Please don't double/triple post, you can edit your old posts within 24 hours of posting them.

This sounds like you have a bad Boot.ini, pointing to the wrong partition. You don't want to "Repair" Windows XP, you want to enter the "Recovery Console" so you can use bootcfg to rebuild boot.ini.

If you use Acronis Disk Director, you can view the properties of a partition and it'll tell you the information you need for boot.ini.
 
Fix for this issue...

I have been a computer tech for over two years now and I also had problems dual-booting, often getting the NTLDR error or invalid boot.ini. What I realized was you want your boot.ini file on the vista partition (or drive) rather than the XP partition (or drive)... for instance, I have Windows Vista installed on drive C: & Windows Media Center installed on drive D: . The boot.ini file for Media Center (drive D:smile: is actually on Vista (drive C:smile:. It reads as the following...

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect


rdisk(1) refers to the D: drive... if you had both Windows loads on one drive (the C: drive) then replace the following.. rdisk(0) partition(2)... Vista being on partition(1) XP being on partition(2)...

One more thing I found I was doing wrong was I had Vista installed first on drive C:, so I loaded XP on drive D:. This wipped out the bootldr Vista uses and replaced it with XP's NTLDR. Using EasyBCD 1.7, I was trying to make XP drive D versus using Active Boot Partition. EasyBCD should read...

There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Microsoft Windows Vista

Entry #1
Name: Microsoft Windows Vista
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows
BCD ID: {f5b5b5ed-63c2-11dc-9e10-959d857ff4a4}
Drive: Active Boot Partition <this is where I was trying to use drive D:>
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR


Don't use my comment above of course "<this is where I was trying to use drive D:>". So all you should have to do with EasyBCD edit is go to Add/Remove entires, for type choose Windows NT/2K/XP/2K3, Name it & leave C: as the drive (which will use Active Boot Partition).

Hope this clears it up.

Thanks & good luck!
Shawn B.

arcticpcs@arcticpcs.com
 
Hi Shawn, welcome to NeoSmart Technologies.

Thanks for sharing your experience with us, Microsoft has made in unduly difficult to set up a Windows XP dual-boot (it's even easier - with EasyBCD - to get Linux running that XP!) and indeed you have to make sure to stick NTLDR, NTDETECT, and Boot.ini on the boot drive, which may have no relationship whatsoever to the XP drive :S

Well, no matter - that's life and it's not the end of the world.

Thanks again for sharing, and we're glad you liked EasyBCD :smile:
 
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