Problems dual booting into XP

loopyjoe

Member
Hello, I hope you can help me with the mess I've gotten into. I've been going around in circles with this all week, trying all sorts of suggestions from your site and elsewhere and getting nowhere.

I have Windows 7 installed on a Sata drive on my pc, and I want to be able to use XP as well. I've added a second hard drive from my old pc using ide, reformatted and installed XP on it. If I disconnect the Sata drive I can boot into XP and it seems fine. But with the Sata drive connected I can't get into XP at all, though I can access the drive through Win 7.

I have a menu created by EasyBCD and it boots into 7 but when I choose XP I get "invalid boot.ini file Booting from c:\windows Ntdetect failed".

I have boot.ini, ntdetect.com and ntldr files on the xp drive G: and also on the System Reserved drive which I have named I: - I think I copied one set of these files from the other following instructions from this site, but it seems EasyBCD has changed the one on I: ?

View Settings in EasyBCD are as follows:
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the bootloader.
Default: Windows 7 Ultimate (recovered)
Timeout: 30 seconds
Boot Drive: I:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7 Ultimate (recovered)
BCD ID: (current)
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {7440b175-beab-11e5-957e-d415e800b2d3}
Drive: I:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\ntldr

I can't get your site working properly in Firefox or IE so I'm typing all this on my iphone. I will try to add a screenshot of Disk Management asap, I'd rather not have to type that out too!
 
Boot W7, start EasyBCD and delete any XP entry in the BCD.
Add an entry for XP, letting EasyBCD auto-configure, and don't change anything it sets up.
Post back if that doesn't sort everything out.
 
Having to trawl through some very old memories from the back of my brain here because it's been many years since I used an IDE connected HDD, but I'm wondering whether the SATA/IDE mix isn't causing problems here.
I remember from many years ago when I did have such a mix, that W7 had problems sorting out which was drive 0 no matter what boot order was set in the BIOS. iirc, it always set IDE as 0 even when the BIOS said to use the SATA first. ii also rc, when they "fixed" the problem in W8, they merely changed it to put SATA first (again regardless of what the BIOS said) which was more of a sticking plaster than a proper fix. I guess they figured it wasn't worth any effort as IDE would fade away and the problem would cease to exist eventually.
I notice that your screenshot shows XP as disk 0 (the boot drive) even though you're booting from W7 (or its sys res adjunct), which might be indicative.
The troubleshooter here doesn't concern itself with IDE/SATA clashes, but does mention that disk 0 confusion might be a cause, though the manual fix towards the end would seem to be something you've already tried.
If you've got identical ntdetects in both active partitions already, I'm running out of suggestions.
I'll mention it to the author to see if his extensive knowledge of the MS booting code structure can suggest a solution/workaround.
I'll come back if I can remember any more detail of how (or if) I fixed the IDE/SATA problem I had (or exactly what the nature of it was).
 
Thank you for your replies.
Assuming you're right, and it seems very likely that you are, then all I have to do is install XP in a new partition on the SATA drive instead. I did try that in the first place but I don't think I've tried it since I created a slipstreamed XP with SP 2 CD.

So this is my plan:
remove xp entry in EasyBCD
delete xp partition from ide disk
create new 20GB partition on SATA drive
install XP on new partition using slipstreamed cd
add new XP entry in EasyBCD
reformat IDE drive for storage use

Do you think that'll work?
 
Now I've made things worse! I tried to follow the plan above except I disconnected the ide hd instead of deleting xp. When the XP install process finished copying files it restarted and then wouldn't boot. I get "error loading operating system". I've tried "bootsect /nt60 syd" and "bootrec.exe /fixboot" but still can't boot. I don't even get as fsr as the menu options now.

I should point out that I am sure I chose the new 20gb partition, so Win 7 should still be intact.

Sorry about complicating matters. Please can you help?
 
I also tried "bootrec /rebuildbcd" and got "Total identified Windows installations: 0" - although Win 7 had been detected on the previous screen!
 
Make sure that your BIOS is set to boot CD before HDD, otherwise the XP install will try to boot the unfinished XP at the first auto reboot instead of continuing from the CD until the install is complete.
Once XP is booting, you'll need to repair the W7 boot to get back the W7 bootloader. The XP install will have regressed the boot to NTLDR.
 
When I try to install xp onto the new partition on the sata drive, it gets as far as the first auto reboot but no further. If I then boot from cd again it starts the install all over again, but if I don't boot from cd then I get Error loading operating system straight away.
The cd drive I've been using is also ide, so I tried disconnecting that too and booting from an external drive, but the results were the same. Also I noticed that the Cd boot option keeps disappearing and reappearing in cmos. I'm not sure if this also happens when using the ide cd drive.
I "borrowed" the sata hdd from my wife's old laptop and wiped it, and installed xp and win 7 with a working dual boot menu easily. But I still want to get my own system working.
Leaving xp aside, win 7 setup's Startup Repair repaired corrupt boot sector code, but I still got Error loading op. system on restart. bootrec /rebuildbcd still failed to identify windows installation, but bootrec /fixmbr got win 7 back working again. Now I can salvage stuff from this, then replace this drive with my wife's (which she doesn't need and anyway is twice the size of mine!), use the dual boot I made earlier and keep the ide hdd for extra storage. Hopefully that'll be the end of it. Thank you very much for your help, Terry. I guess you were right, the ide/sata mix was the problem.
 
When you see "press any key to boot from CD" you should only do that once, the first time you start.
The message is very misleading.
The CD has already booted (it's the CD giving you the message).
What it should say is "Hello, this is the CD speaking. Would you like to start the install from the beginning again ? If so press any key. If not, just wait and I'll carry on from where I got to before I automatically rebooted"
I guess they figured that was a bit wordy, and settled for something entirely inaccurate instead.
That's why you must have CD set to boot before HDD. If you use F8 boot override to select CD instead of hard-coding it in the BIOS, the auto-reboots will default to the (not yet working) HDD partial OS. If you set the BIOS to CD, at the restarts, you'll still get the "press any key...", but you can leave it unattended and it will time-out and continue with setup from wherever it previously got to.
"Startup repair" on any OS from Vista onwards, needs to be run multiple times as it only fixes one problem per boot, and there are several things to be reinstated if you've let XP clobber the boot. Three times generally does the job. (MBR, bootmgr and BCD would be my guess)
 
"If you set the BIOS to CD, at the restarts, you'll still get the "press any key...", but you can leave it unattended and it will time-out and continue with setup from wherever it previously got to."

Yes, I know this is what's meant to happen, and it worked that way when I installed xp on my wife's hdd. But in my system it does not attempt to continue, it goes straight to "Error loading operating system" after time-out. In fact it looks something like:
Press any key to boot from CD.....Error loading operating system.
 
Make sure you're using a wired keyboard and not a wireless or bluetooth one. If it's a USB keyboard and not a PS/2 one, make sure that "Legacy USB" is enabled in the BIOS.
 
Also, with regards to your earlier question above - disk management has a few quirks that sometimes prevent it from accurately portraying your filesystem layout.

A screenshot of minitool partition wizard's (free) render of your disk and the output of
EasyBCD | Useful Utilities | Power Console
bootgrabber.exe /v /tlist

would be most helpful.
 
My keyboard is PS/2. I disconnected all usb devices and the ide hdd, and changed the jumper on the cd drive to make it master. Setup still gives the error after the first reboot.
Here are the screenshots asked for.
 

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