Installed WinXP on a laptop with Windows7 using usb. Now WinXP won't boot w/o the usb

M

MYShine

Member
Hello neosmart and everyone,

I am Max. I hope you can have some time to help me with my problem.

So here it goes:

1. I have a laptop, pre-installed with Windows Vista.

2. I didn't like Windows Vista, so I upgraded it to Windows 7 which was successful.

3. Because I like to play 3D games, I wanted to install Windows XP Home Edition to give most of the laptop resources to the game. My RAM was really a problem which was only 1GB, originally. We upgraded it, though, to 2GB now. Now I can play better, but still I wanted to install Windows XP.

4. I installed Windows XP. I used wintoflash to make my usb flash drive bootable with the Windows XP ISO since my DVD-ROM won't work, and my external DVD-ROM won't boot too.

Now here comes the problem, I followed the guide on how to use wintoflash. First, I chose the first option which was "1st, text mode setup (Boot from flash again after finished)"
http://i1078.photobucket.com/albums/w500/iloveyousomuch78/boot.jp
<<this is the boot.ini from the usb flash drive I used to install WinXP on my computer. The same text appears on startup except for the multi(0)disk(0)....etc.>>

Win XP was installing and then it needs to reboot, right? So, on the guide it says to choose the "2nd, GUI mode setup, continue setup + 1st start of Windows" next. But when i choose that option, the screen just goes blank and black. I kept repeating this until I decided to try on the "Debug boot rDisk 1 partition 2" option. Yayyy! I got windows XP! It booted to Win XP right there and then. I was so happy that I got winXP, I stopped and took out the usb flash drive which I used then after some time, I restarted my laptop. Now Win XP won't boot. And I can't boot to Windows 7 too! I installed easybcd but then it can't add windows xp to the dual boot. When I boot with the hard drive, it tells something like "Invalid boot file, Booting C:\Windows" if I am not mistaken.

I search on the internet about my problem but I can't just find the specific one. There is a boot.ini on my usb flash drive too, I guess it is the problem. And I think I messed with my laptop(and easybcd, plus the boot.ini's) pretty well too, now it loads grub when I boot from the hard drive but still can't get to windows.


Please help me guys :frowning: I have been like this for like 2 weeks now, and I am really having a lot of problems because I need to use my laptop and internet for my projects in university :frowning:

Please :frowning:

I would really appreciate any kind of help.

Thank you!



Please pray to God always. God bless us all!:smile:
 
With the usb plugged, I can boot into Windows XP. It also gives the option to install XP again, or repair it.

Without the usb plugged, It says "Invalid Boot.ini file. Booting C:\Windows" but displays a black screen after a blink of an eye. Boots to nothing.

But since I tried to install grub2 using easyBCD, when I try to boot without the usb plugged, it goes to the grub command line or something like it. Not really familiar with it.


Thank you very much for replying friend guru :smile:
God bless you!:smile:
 
EasyBCD | BCD Deployment | Write MBR

That should get you able to boot back into Windows 7 without the USB, and you should be able to add an XP entry with EasyBCD from there.
 
I already did that friend but still not getting me to windows 7 :frowning:
just to be sure, I did it again but still I can't boot to windows 7.
btw, I chose "Install the Windows Vista/7 bootloader to the MBR" option, since I have read in another thread that it should be like that.

It can't add WinXP too. It says "EasyBCD failed to detect a valid installation of Windows NT-2003 on all mounted drives and was unable to continue."

Thank you!
God bless!:smile:
 
Before I messed it up, i think, it was drive E where windows XP is. C is marked as System where windows 7 is. and Drive E is marked as Boot. I tried to mark each partition as active and reboot hoping it would fix the problem but it didn't. Now I have partition F as active which is named something like Presario, I guess it is where the back up and the system restore is. I don't know really.

God bless!:smile:
 
Back
Top