Problem to dual boot win7 and XP

U

Unreel

Member
Hi everyone.

I was trying to dual boot 7 and xp, but I installed them in wrong order(got to know it after...) as I installed 7 first then xp. Now the system only recognize XP or 7. If i use the 7 installation disk to recover 7, I'll be able to boot 7 and see entry of xp, but unable to boot it(says system failed to boot); then I used Easybcd and clicked "uninstall vista boot loader" (since there's no 7 boot loader), and now XP became the only available OS.

I tried to set up "Reinstall vista boot loader" again in order to recover 7's boot loader but the system shows a notice of error and doesn't recognise any change, and I still only have XP as the bootable OS.

Can anyone please tell me what's going on and how to solve the problem? Thanks in advance.
 
Ok, don't panic, thats the first step...

Startup repair Windows 7 again. Get EasyBCD beta b63 from here. Re-add an entry for XP (Add/Remove Entries/XP) and when it offers to autoconfigure let it do so. You may than delete the old XP entrie(s).
 
Remember that W7 doesn't officially exist yet, but that it's really Vista 2. It uses the same bootmanager BCD and bootloader as Vista.
When you "uninstalled Vista boot loader" you removed the W7 bootloader (you don't have Vista)
That button is provided for people who want to get rid of a dual boot and go back to using just XP by itself.
By clicking that button, you did exactly the same as when you installed XP after W7, you removed W7's boot process and replaced it with XP's
Follow Justin's advice.
 
Problem solved! I appreciate the help, Justin. Thank you too Terry, for the explaination.

I noticed that when booting the XP entry doesn't have an F8 option for safe mode and such, while W7 does. Is this the way it's supposed to be or I'm still missing something?
 
Yes, its the way its supposed to be. You haft to press F8 to intercept XP's safe mode menu almost immediately after you select XP's entry. You don't need to do this for Vista/W7 cause bootmgr supports those versions of Windows directly, while ntldr must ultimately be used in order to boot earlier versions of Windows.
 
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