just about to give up on dual booting

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collieman

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just about to give up on dual booting.. SOLVED

Well, this is it. If I can't find an answer here I'm throwing in the towel after two weeks of trying. I've dual booted many times before with different distros of Linux with no problems at all. A friend gave me his HP a6000n computer as it didn't work anymore as was getting a new one. I fixed the machine with a new CPU and decided since it had a nice big hard drive (250 gigs) I'd set up a dual boot of VISTA and XP. Made two 80 gig partitions (C&D) for them. I installed VISTA on "C" and XP on "D". I thought a boot manager would appear at startup but it didn't. Went straight to XP. Both OS's work just fine BTW. I searched the internet for a solution and deceided against editing the .ini so I downloaded Easy BCD. I was able to get a boot manager BUT I had to reinstall VISTA's MBR to get it. Using the boot manager will let me get into VISTA but then XP comes up with an error...missing NTLDR. If I use Easy BDC to reinstall the XP MBR then XP loads with no boot manger. How can I keep XP's MBR when reinstalling VISTA's MBR? I Can't have both. Thanks, Collieman
 
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Terry, trying BCD Beta 2

Terry, I just read your reply here and am having the same problem. I downloaded the new Beta version and did what you said. I deleted the XP entry then reinstalled XP allowing BCD to automatically reconfigure my settings BUT it's been "reconsidering" for over an hour now. Tried it twice and the same thing. Is this normal? Collieman

Addendum:

Terry, I just got my answer. It must not be normal. I ran out of disk space (80 gigs) by letting it automatically reconfigure settings. Now the computer won't boot at all. I'm using one of my old computers now. What a hassle. Collieman
 
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Hi Collieman.
Don't put the XP MBR back. Vista must be in control.
Use EasyBCD 2.0 latest build. add/remove entries. Delete the XP entry, add it again, accept the offer to auto-configure.

ADDENDUM

Just read and merged your post in another thread.
That runaway space-gobbler has been reported before by one other user I think.
What exactly has filled the space ?
 
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Sorry, I don't know what filled the space. It filled the partition then froze. I rebooted but there was no boot manager just a blinking cursor and no OS's so I used my VISTA disk and did a startup repair then ran disk cleaner.

Addendum:

Terry, I just got done restoring my original "C" partition using a wonder piece of software called Macrium Reflect. I deleted it thinking that maybe because it was HP's version of VISTA it was causing the boot manager problem. I did do a complete backup of the partition before deleting it. But after the restore I installed the new beta 2.0 version and there was no XP entry, just VISTA so I added XP and let it automatically configure and it worked!! I now have a boot manager with both OS's and they both work. I'll have to add Easy BCD beta version 2.0 to my list of "wonderful software". Thank you very much for your help in solving this BIG problem for me. I'll bet it will help others too. Collieman
 
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OK I'll bring this to CG's attention, but meanwhile, would you like to know how to do this the old fashioned way ?
Check which partition is marked "system" in disk management.
That's where all the boot files for both systems have to be.
If it's not XP, copy NTLDR, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from the XP root into the "system" root, and add an entry to the BCD for XP, using EasyBCD 1.7.
The copy of boot.ini should be altered (if needed) to point to the location of the XP partition.

ADDENDUM

Our posts crossed. Glad it's all sorted now.
 
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