New here...need help setting up EasyBCD

No. Unfortunately, Microsoft has taken a really scary approach to stopping people from disabling drivers - the last application that tried to allow users to disable signed-driver verification on Windows Vista x64 was listed as a virus on Windows Defender, had their Verisign HTTPS license revoked at Microsoft's request, and basically were screwed-over bigtime.

I don't think I want that to happen to EasyBCD :smile:
 
hum...EasyBCD, if i were you i would definetly keep it, HnS controls the boot as you say, but the many rescue tabs and options in EasyB are sweet...in any case. I would keep it...but heck you can do whatever you like...
 
simonb said:
hum...EasyBCD, if i were you i would definetly keep it, HnS controls the boot as you say, but the many rescue tabs and options in EasyB are sweet...in any case. I would keep it...but heck you can do whatever you like...
Click to expand...
I never had any intention of removing EasyBCD, only 'bypassing' the Vista Bootloader screen. However, as I said, I will leave it, as it is the most direct way to disable the driver signing requirement. And, um.....thanks for your input?.:lup:
 
That is workable !!

I can work with that !! Now the in-place upgrade won't be so scary, and will certainly be a much faster way to do this :??

Terry60 said:
Hi Bobburns, welcome to NST.
Can't help with what you were specifically proposing, but thought I'd point out that this site hosts ISO downloads for x86 and x64 Vista recovery disks.
They're provided specifically for users with an OEM recovery partition environment who lack a bootable DVD with which to repair the Vista boot.
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/
Click to expand...


Addendum:

Terry60 said:
Hi Bobburns, welcome to NST.
Can't help with what you were specifically proposing, but thought I'd point out that this site hosts ISO downloads for x86 and x64 Vista recovery disks.
They're provided specifically for users with an OEM recovery partition environment who lack a bootable DVD with which to repair the Vista boot.
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-vista-recovery-disc-download/
Click to expand...

Well, I hate to report - as I feared - the XP dual boot install attempt COMPLETELY hosed my system with an in place upgrade. First, there was no way to install the SATA driver (windows wanted a floppy drive) - then with NLite - I built a bootable XP Pro CD with SP2. Then it got through the first part of the install - but saw NO existing Windows installation but only the partition, and I had no way to upgrade - but only over-write - so I made a Windows2 directory - and I would be able to patch the SATA driver later into the other and delete it. NOPE - it hosed the bootsector, reported that NTLDR was missing - when it was not, and currently will not boot either O/S. I cannot re-install Vista right now because it is looking into the XP partition for a .wim file

So then after this nightmare I found the post that had the info I needed to just put the proper entries into the registry and manually install the iastor.sys driver. That is the way I will have to go - after I am sure what will be three more days of Windows senseless crap I am heading for I am sure.

The Vista Recovery CD is pretty much worthless but to look to the hard drive (or give you a command prompt) and re-install Vista like new - I guess - but it won't work until I delete all my work of copying the windows XP O/S to the other drive.

You know there is something mentally wrong with a company (Microsoft and it's vendors who sell this crappy O/S) - and I mean STUPID when they bring out a product that does not work (missing lots of drivers) and will not let you have a working brand new computer AT ALL but for you to START completely over and deal with all their bloatware you never really wanted ever anyway - is just pure ridiculousness.

Right now I cannot fix the Vista bootsector. Is there some other way than this Vista Recovery CD that anyone knows of to fix a Vista Boosector? I have tried what I can see is just about everything

When I run bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd I get the error "the requested system device cannot be found" after it scans and finds the installation and asks if the installation should be added to the boot list.

I am about ready to take it back to the store and tell them that Microsoft has them selling ridiculous junk and that the waste of my time is not worth the cost of the computer
 
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Hey Guys,

I've been following this thread because I had problems similar with wera's. I originally had XP on my computer, partitioned it, then installed Vista on the other partition. When the install was complete, I could not access my XP partition. I tried every tip I could find on google and it eventually took me to this post. So I did everything that you guys told wera and it did not help me. The last thing I did was install HnS and I couldn't get into Vista or XP, so I had to repair with my Vista disk to get back into it. My XP drive has the 3 boot up files. When I try and boot into XP from the boot loader, my computer just goes black and restarts. >.< Here is what my boot.ini on the XP side looks like (The disk is Disk 3, XP on partition 1, Vista 2). Should the boot.ini file be identical on the XP & Vista drives?

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(3)partition(2)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(3)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I don't know what else to do. Any help would be cool.

Cheers,

Joe

P.S. Sorry if I Hijacked the thread at all.
 
Hi Joe, welcome to NST.
Your boot.ini is all wrong.
For a kick off, the default line should point to the prefered choice of several XPs (if there are multiple OSs), or for a single XP it should be identical to the address in the other line. (you've got P2 in one and P1 in the other)
You've also got rdisk(3) which is saying that it's on your 4th HDD - Is that really correct ?
Have a read of the wiki about setting up XP in a dual boot
http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Windows+XP
and pay special attention to the troubleshooting link.
The boot files which are controlling your Vista and XP boots are both in the root of the partition marked "active" on whichever disk is 1st in the BIOS boot sequence. (this is not necessarily XP)

Bob
The ISO disks here contain no installation files to recover a missing Vista, only the recovery environment to enable a boot repair, or a recovery to a system restore point.
 
Easy BCD or Vista kept dropping NTLDR, BCD

I manually edited the registry for the SATA driver and then copied the config and user directories to the Windows XP location I was to boot from. It booted into the Windows XP screen - meaning the SATA driver was obviously working, but hung there. (I had not done the other drivers - video, sound, modem, lan etc ) The SATA driver loads fine and can be seen in safe mode as one of the drivers that loads.

When I rebooted (cold cocked to power off) the Vista boots - Windows then said "NTLDR" is missing or corrupt.

The NTLDR was there. I copied a working NTLDR over the first - same thing.

Then I looked at Easy BCD - and it was now showing the Windows installation NOW on drive "G". Of course there is no NTLDR on "G" - but there was a drive "G". Why it changed on it's own is an apparent bug.

I couldn't get the Easy BCD entry back to "C" - it will go "BOOT", "G" or "H" (even though "BOOT", "C" and "H" were the options

I finally got the Easy BCD to let go of the persistent "G" designation (a jump drive plugged in to the USB port) and then the thing just re-booted after going to boot Windows XP - no bluescreen - just a reboot - and Vista could boot as first on the bootmanager

Then I de-installed the boot manager to try to make it boot Windows XP straight.

I got the NTLDR is missing error again.

Then it just kept blowing away the \boot\BCD file - turning it back into a backup - and I kept copying the backup back to a BCD file. Seven times it did this. There are two versions - a recovery.bcd one about 24,000 in size and a BCD.Backup.0000x that is about 28,000 bytes. Finally I used he recovery file. bootrec /rebuildbcd did not work either

Then the Vista O/S was just gone in the Vista recovery disk repair window.

Then booting in with the Recovery CD and starting the install - and putting in the Key Code - it failed looking for a .wim file on the E: drive where XP is, - but on a cold cock and reboot - on reboot the Vista O/S shows again.

Still wouldn't boot - but the second time back in - no Vista O/S shows again, but this time a repair and restart works.

Pure craziness. Absolute lunacy.

Two things:

1. The recovery of the Vista Bootloader is totally a hit and miss to repair - even with the Vista Recovery CD. Bootrec /rebuildbcd does not work - but fails instead and turns the \boot\BCD back into a backup file
2. To de-install the Vista Bootloader with EasyBCD asks for trouble because somehow the NTLDR does not get "seen" any longer

Now the unit will boot both systems again - but hangs in Windows XP (safe mode) at trying to load "agp440.sys" - obviously not needed on an integrated Intel Mobile chipset. Renaming the file does not help get past it - so it's back the registry again to manually remove it. This is a Windows XP hardware problem I can fix if I keep the system dual booting through EasyBCD.

So it is possible to copy a Windows O/S to a new machine and manually modify the registry for a SATA driver - but a virgin or in place upgrade install of Windows XP actually did not work and caused even more problems - even after slipstreaming a CD to include the SATA drivers.

EasyBCD appears have some issues. Does anyone out there know of this - or has run into this \boot\BCD dropping to a \boot\BCD.backup.000x file issue? :angry:

Bob
 
bobburns said:
Then I de-installed the boot manager to try to make it boot Windows XP straight.

I got the NTLDR is missing error again.
Click to expand...

You should only concentrate on one problem at a time. Dealing with mutliple problems at once won't get you anywhere and leave you just as frustrated if not more.

I'd go ahead and concentrate on XP's problems first since Vista is the newest and should be able to boot XP later once you get all of the problems worked out. The "NTLDR is missing or corrupt" error is occuring because it is trying to boot XP from a partition (either XP or Vistas) that does not contain the file. Your job as the user is to locate which partition contains the file and copy it to the other. That should at least stop you from getting that message anyway.

If XP still fails to even move to the loading screen, then your boot.ini entries are probably incorrect. If you can boot Vista at this point (either through sheer luck of startup repair or a miracle), take advantage of the luxury of notepad and disk management to verify that the entries are pointing to the right disk and partition for XP. You only need to change the rdisk(x) and partition(x) values (The disk(0) value always stays the same). Then recover the legacy Windows bootloader to try to boot XP again or re-add an entry in EasyBCD to boot it.

If the above isn't an option, boot into the recovery console and attempt bootcfg /rebuild, fixboot, and fixmbr to see if this'll at least get you into XP.

bobburns said:
EasyBCD appears have some issues. Does anyone out there know of this - or has run into this \boot\BCD dropping to a \boot\BCD.backup.000x file issue?
Click to expand...

I believe EasyBCD well make backups of the BCD store periodically or when you tell it to, but It is not the reason for the lack of \Boot\BCD. You should use bootrec /rebuildbcd to build a new store.

bobburns said:
So it is possible to copy a Windows O/S to a new machine and manually modify the registry for a SATA driver - but a virgin or in place upgrade install of Windows XP actually did not work and caused even more problems - even after slipstreaming a CD to include the SATA drivers.
Click to expand...

I don't know about a registry hack to get it working, but you could try. An easier solution might be attempting a repair install on XP using the slipstreamed CD or loading the drivers manually to do it.

If you really can't get it to work after this, consider backing up any recoverable data and re-install both XP and Vista after having done a complete re-format of the drive.
 
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