multi boot 7-xp-xp

G

gwiddles

Member
This is my first attempt at multi booting so please be patient with me. I installed windows 7 on its' own drive and then installed xp on a separate drive, installed easybcd on windows 7 and set it up without any trouble. I then created a new partition on the second drive and installed another xp, added another entry in easybcd but now when I boot I get a second boot manager screen after easybcd. This second screen only gives me the drive letters of the two partitions. Is there any way to avoid this? I wanted to make it as simple as possible for the people that will be using this computer. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

Drive c and x are windows 7 (x is system), d and g are xp

Also all of the boot files are in the system partition x

There are a total of 3 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default:
Timeout: 30 seconds.
Boot Drive: X:\

Entry #1
Name: windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: xp 1
BCD ID: {10dcdced-2755-11df-beeb-001a926ff232}
Device: boot
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

Entry #3
Name: xp 2 safe
BCD ID: {10dcdcee-2755-11df-beeb-001a926ff232}
Device: boot
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR
 

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Both those XP entries are identical minus their names so you can delete the second one. You are getting a second screen selecting XP because there are multiple XP installations and Windows 7's bootloader can't directly load XP (it passes control off to XP's bootloader to load the selected XP installation). If you would like to modify the names of the XP installations on the second menu you need to do so in boot.ini, which can be found on the system partition. You may need to enable viewing of hidden and protected operating system files in folder options before you can find this file.

It appears as if you want to keep one install for testing and the other for reliable operation. Another solution you can consider if you don't like the second menu is running the test XP in a VM.
 
Thanks for your response. Just to be absolutely clear I have one more question. If I put the second xp on its own drive would I have the same situation (second boot screen) and still need to modify boot.ini. Thanks.
 
Yes. It's a MS design feature.
Vista/7 bootmgr doesn't load XP. It passes control to the XP legacy bootloader. That's what displays a second menu if there's more than one XP (no matter where they are)
If you want a single boot menu, you'll need a non-MS boot manager.
You can do it from one menu using HnS (a custom GUI for grub4dos). This will also protect your Windows 7 restore points from corruption by XP every time you boot either of them.
If you don't use HnS, you should at least be doing this in both XPs, to protect W7
 
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