NavyChief Help Please

[harleyman]

Hi Terry and Coolname 007...... Started a new thread to avoid confussion...Thanks

We have his XP back booting now as long as his vista drive is not connected...If its connected he gets a blackscreen and an error....


We tried all the three steps to recover his Vista BMR from XP...It all was a no go...

On the second thing to try we got to a point where it asked us to select 1-12???
We got lost at that point....We booted again into XP and tried number three fix....

It too failed and when it said at that point to delete the boot file we got lost....


So...May I turn this over to you guys for some expert advice to Pete, and what he should do and how to procede...


Keep in mind....He has XP on three drives still ( but all but C/Drive are inactive now)

So I guess at once he has a total of 4 OS installs....3 XP and 1 Vista...


He can boot into XP now, then connect his Vista drive up and see it....



So...Thank you all for your great support here.....Here is Pete aka NavyChief...

 

[Coolname007]

Hi Terry and Coolname 007...... Started a new thread to avoid confussion...Thanks

We have his XP back booting now as long as his vista drive is not connected...If its connected he gets a blackscreen and an error....

Alright...so ask him which drive he has first in the boot sequence in the BIOS, when he has the Vista drive connected. BTW, he will need to have his Vista drive connected when he attempts the repairs from XP...

-Coolname007

 

[retnavycpo]

Alright...so ask him which drive he has first in the boot sequence in the BIOS, when he has the Vista drive connected. BTW, he will need to have his Vista drive connected when he attempts the repairs from XP...

-Coolname007

Thanks Coolname: Do you mean the boot priority in setup? Wish I could respond faster, but company here....

PEte

 

[JustinW]

Yes boot priority/boot sequence in BIOS. You might be better off making Vista the first drive in the system with XP second, though boot.ini would need to be fixed using EasyBCD 2.0 beta, but than again, you'd need to be able to get into Vista to do that.

 

[harleyman]

YUp believe so Pete...in the bios it will list all your HDDs and what you want is for XP to be on the top of the list.... do that by selecting and moving its priority up....

 

[Coolname007]

Thanks Coolname: Do you mean the boot priority in setup? Wish I could respond faster, but company here....

PEte

Hi Pete.
Yeah, that's what I meant... Different BIOSes call it different things, but it does the same thing though...namely determine which drive your computer boots from at startup.

The reason I asked that question is because I'm thinking your Vista drive must be already first in the boot order, which is why you get that error message/blank screen, or whatever, when you have the Vista drive connected. But naturally, when you disconnect the Vista drive, the XP drive moves up one space in the boot priority, and that is how you can boot into XP (though you could achieve the same thing by changing the boot order in the BIOS, so your XP drive boots first anyway, with your Vista drive still connected).

-Coolname007

Addendum:

Yes boot priority/boot sequence in BIOS. You might be better off making Vista the first drive in the system with XP second, though boot.ini would need to be fixed using EasyBCD 2.0 beta, but than again, you'd need to be able to get into Vista to do that.

No, that wouldn't work, Justin, because his whole thing is he can't boot into Vista, and he can't boot from the Vista DVD (though I'm thinking that may be due to a faulty disk) for some reason, and so can't do Startup Repair, which is what we're trying to fix now... His XP drive needs to remain first in the boot sequence even when his Vista drive is still connected. And then from XP, he should reinstall the Vista bootloader to the XP drive (and this is IMPORTANT), and use EasyBCD to add entries to boot both XP and Vista in his newly-created BCD file that will be created when he clicks on the option of writing the MBR, and reinstalling the Vista bootloader, from EasyBCD in XP, while he's still in XP, so he can boot afterwards.

@Pete: First, though, before you do all that, can you please post a screenshot of your Disk Management screen? I want to see firsthand your drive and partitioning scheme...

-Coolname007

 

[harleyman]

Pete is going nuts guys..We worked on this for 2 days over the phone and had just gotten somewhere..I had him regester and we were going to have a go with you alls help ...

And Company came over (his son) and he can't leave them....He will be back tommorrow in full force though.... Thanks for all your patience ...

Pete.(NavyChief) Terry said this in my thread earlier.... get busy son and post those screenshots...LOL

Quote.......
I can see your problem if you're helping him remotely and he only has the one PC. He presumably has nowhere else to boot the DVD and check that it's OK ?
Can he boot XP, register on this site and join the thread ?
A screenshot of his disk management display, booted from XP with the Vista disk connected, and a couple of shots of the Explorer display of the roots of both OS partitions would be useful in figuring out what's going on. (unhide system and hidden files and known file extensions in folder options first)



Thanks ........ Can you give him a path to the *Roots * shots you want...he can post both drives connected..he will just need to know more clearly where to get the screenie at...Thanks ...

 

[retnavycpo]

Please forgive me for the delay in replying. I appreciate everyone's help with this (especially Mason for initiating/searching out all this expertise!) I took some screenshots. Hopefully this might provide some helpful information?

Pete

My system is:
Main: DFI Corp,LTD LP NF4 Series
BIOS : Phoenix Tech PG06/23/2005-NF-CK804-6A61FD49C-00
CPU: AMD 64 X2 Dual Core Proc 4800+Speed 2.41GHz
RAM: 4GB DDR3, (XP only recognizing 3GB)
Power: C Power/Cooling Turbo-Cool 510-SLI ATX12V 510W
Video: (2) NVIDIA GForce 8800 GT OC (512MB)
HD:
HDT722525DLA380 250GB SATA300,
HDT722525DLA380 250GB SATA300
WDC WD740GD-00FLC0 74GB SATA150
WDC WD5000AAKS-00A7B2

 

[retnavycpo]

Also wanted to add that I have SiSoft's Sandra installed. I really don't know how to use that program, but it does a lot of indepth info gathering. Maybe if someone on this forum could tell me, maybe Sandra would provide a useful report I could post?

Thanks.

Pete

 

[Terry60]

Hi Pete, can you include a screenshot of the contents of the partition roots of the 2 OSs
(I've attached mine so you can see what I mean), so we can see where everything is and if anything is awry.
Make sure folder options specify that hidden and system files and known extensions are not hidden. (they're the low intensity lines in my example, and what we're interested in)

 

[retnavycpo]

Like these?

Pete

 

[Terry60]

That's interesting. XP on C:\ is your "system" disk (where all the boot files should be) and it contains Vista's bootmgr file and boot folder (as it should do - they install to "system" not necessarily Vista), but it contains no XP boot files (NTLDR ntdetect.com and boot.ini) and I can't see them on any other disk either, so how exactly are you booting XP ?

Addendum:

Sorry to leave you now, but it's 3am here and I need to get some sleep. I've been fitting a tow-bar on my car all day today (yesterday more correctly) so I haven't been around online as much as usual. But other more westerly regulars should be around soon.

 

[retnavycpo]

Maybe these are better?

Also, I need to add information on a different problem associated somehow with the Vista 64 drive. If I connect it with the Sata cable, then I am not able to boot into any of the XP drives. I get an error like the one in the black screen jpg I posted earlier.

Additionally, when the error happens, the only way I can get back into the XP drives, is to run the "Repair" option of the XP Install disc, go to CMD prompt, and enter "FIXMBR", and "FIXBOOT". Then, once I have ONLY the XP drives connected, I am once again able to boot into the XP drives.

That being said. Whew! This particular problem of getting an error, when the VIsta 64 drive was connected, I had just unplugged a set of headphones that are USB powered. The darn thing has given me trouble before (i.e. rebooted the computer), but this time, I am sure it has something to do with messing up the boot sequence.

Either way, I have never been able to switch between operating systems (as in between the XP drives and Vista).

Pete

P.S. The friend who initially help me build my system had created the boot.ini for me. My opening boot screen (for XP drives) has all three XP drives listed: C/D/E

When I installed Vista 64 on a fourth drive, since then, it has never allowed me to boot into the XP drives when it is connected.

 

[Coolname007]

Hi again, Pete.
Can you please a new screenshot of Disk Management, this time leaving only the XP (the one that's installed to the partition name"XP media") and Vista (that you're trying to fix) drives connected, and disconnecting the other 2 drives?
Thanks.

That is because with the other 2 connected, I can't tell precisely what's going on in your system, other than that you appear to have an IDE and SATA drive mix (which causes the IDE drive to be detected first by Disk Management, regardless of which is first in the boot order). I'm hoping when you disconnect the other 2 drives, it will leave only either 2 SATA drives connected, or 2 IDE.

-Coolname007

EDIT: Also, are you sure you posted all the contents of the root of the (C) partition? As Terry stated, there doesn't appear to be a boot.ini anywhere on your system (going by the screenshots), though there must be one, if XP boots...

EDIT again: Nevermind...please post the contents of every .ini file on your (C) partition (I see 3). One of them must be boot.ini, just named differently...

 

[Terry60]

I would guess that your fundamental problem, the original one that stopped you dual booting properly, and needed HDDs to be plugged/unplugged, is a matter of incorrect boot order in the BIOS
If you read point 3 of the sticky thread, you'll see how the system boot process works.
I imagine that with the Vista HDD connected, it's coming before the XP HDD in the BIOS boot sequence and grabbing the attention before the boot can get to the XP drive.
The problem with booting the CD might be similar.
Get into the BIOS (the splash screen as you first power up should say somewhere "hit del" or some other key to take you into the BIOS editor), and make sure that the boot sequence is Floppy / CDRom / HDD, and that the HDD sequence puts the XP HDD before Vista, and you should be able to boot with all the disks connected.
Do a search and find out where NTLDR, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini are located. They're essential to boot XP so you must have them somewhere.

You do have your folder options set like this (all 3) ?

 

[retnavycpo]

Thanks all. Will check back this afternoon, and have more information to post. Sunday outing with wife...... THANK YOU!!!

Pete

 

[retnavycpo]

Terry,

I didn't have all the files available in the View option, so here are more pictures. Will go back into Bios settings, and make sure XP is at top of boot settings. Also, will make sure Floppy drive is selected for boot sequence. More in a bit. The boot.ini. backup was the only boot.ini that showed up in a search.

Pete

 

[retnavycpo]

make sure that the boot sequence is Floppy / CDRom / HDD

In the Bios settings, I do not have a "Floppy" as an option for bootup listed. It does have "Removable disc" or something like that.

Additionally, I left the XP C: drive plugged in, along with the Vista drive. Upon startup, I still have the same options screen for booting into one of three XP drives, even though two of the drives are not plugged in. The Vista option for bootup is not listed. Never has been. When the Vista drive bootup was working properly, it would only boot when just IT was plugged in; not any of the XP drives.

Pete

 

[Terry60]

OK I can see your boot.ini in the "system" root (the C:\ disk) and presumably ntldr etc are there further down the list out of sight. (the copies you found with search are the ones used during install to create the "live" ones which aren't inside any folder but directly in the partition root.)
Verify which boot loader is actually in charge of your boot (it should say somewhere on the menu page)
I am assuming that it's NTLDR and that's the reason you can't boot Vista through it. (It's not forward compatible, and can never be made to boot Vista).
Have you now got XP before Vista in the HDD boot sequence ?
Have you put CD (removable disk) before HDD in the BIOS ?
If so, can you now boot your Vista DVD ?
If you can, you should simply be able to follow the instructions in point 4 of the sticky, to repair the Vista boot and put it back in charge. It should automatically add the XP entries to the BCD when it detects them on the "system" disk.

 

[Coolname007]

In the Bios settings, I do not have a "Floppy" as an option for bootup listed. It does have "Removable disc" or something like that.

Additionally, I left the XP C: drive plugged in, along with the Vista drive. Upon startup, I still have the same options screen for booting into one of three XP drives, even though two of the drives are not plugged in. The Vista option for bootup is not listed. Never has been. When the Vista drive bootup was working properly, it would only boot when just IT was plugged in; not any of the XP drives.

Pete

So I'm assuming you can still boot into XP with the other 2 drives disconnected? If so, then please post a fresh screenshot of Disk Management. I want to see which drive you are actually booting from, whether its XP's or Vista's...
If you get to the black screen still when attempting to boot, then you can simply change the boot order to boot XP's drive first, instead of Vista's.

-Coolname007