Looking for help with dual boot (Vista/XP)

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kreitzig

Member
I was hoping to get some help. I've been going through various posts, but I can't seem to resolve this. I added a 2nd partition to a Vista machine to add XP. In order to allow the install I had to change the setting in my bios from Raid to IDE. I think this is at least part of the problem, but not the whole problem. Currently, I can boot into Vista, as long as I have the setting in my bios on Raid. But I cannot boot into XP at all. If I have the bios set on Raid I get an error and if I have it set on IDE it starts to load, but then reboots. What kind of info do I need to post?

Thanks.
 
I don't think so. I could change the it for the XP install, but would it be the same for Vista? I tried Vista and it won't boot with the bios in AHCI. Either way, I think the more immediate concern is that XP won't complete a boot in any mode. I should be able to at least boot into IDE, but it just starts to load and then reboots.
 
Unfortunately, you can't have it both ways. You have to decide whether the settings are going to be RAID or not. If truly RAID, the drives are effectively connected and XP will not be able to have an independent existence on one of the drives. If only AHCI mode, then you need to load a driver for XP. Is the error 7B?

If you want both to boot with the setup you have, you will need to set it so XP will boot and then reinstall Vista from scratch. You could do a repair installation of Vista if it would boot, but unlike XP, a repair needs to be started from Windows in Vista since it is really considered an upgrade. On the other hand, running Startup Repair on Vista with the IDE setting, if done multiple times, and depending on other factors such as what type of RAID you had set up, whether RAID controller drivers were installed in Vista, and so on, you may get it to work.

But chances are very good that you will either have to reinstall Vista in IDE mode, or load a SATA driver with F6 for XP so it will be able to boot in AHCI mode.

Only one partition can be active. Booting Vista with the XP drive attached most likely made XP unbootable.
 
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