Problems with Vista\XP Dualboot

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Engmus

Member
Hi everyone, first off great utility, awesome website and lots of reading to do (and has been done!)

I have a interesting problem, on my PC I formatted the hard-drive and decided to dualboot with Windows XP Pro 32bit and Vista Ultimate 64bit.

The last time I dual booted I remembered to install the older OS first, I split my 150gb hard-drive in two (70gb partitons each) and put Windows XP on the first set to primary. I then installed Windows Vista 64bit on the other partition.

At first everything was great the dualboot menu would come up and I could select either operating system.

I launched into XP and setup my software and windows updates (SP3 all hotfixes IE7, no antivirus ATM). Then rebooted launched into Vista and did the same installed all hotfixes (My Ultimate disk already had SP1 installed).

After I rebooted from all the updates and driver installations on Vista my dualboot was gone! It drops me right into Vista. :frowning:

I have yet to try this wonderful EasyBCD utility and im currently at work and wont be getting home to about 6 oclock.

I'll be happy to supply any information from either OS that might be needed to fix this issue, however im hopeful EasyBCD can solve this problem on its own!

Cordially,
Engmus
 
Last edited:
Hi Engmus, welcome to NST.
Sounds like Vista put its boot files on the XP system (as it normally would with XP pre-existing) and auto-detected XP (as it's supposed to)
Can't tell why (yet) the XP entry has disappeared, but first thing to do is check (look in the sticky for details - point 3) if XP is still marked as your "system" disk.
If it is, the fix is as simple as running EasyBCD (add/remove entries) and adding an entry for XP again.
If your Vista boot files have moved as a result of whatever you've been doing, and are now on the Vista HDD (the "system" flag will tell you), follow the other links in the sticky to make sure the XP boot files are copied across into the "system" partition root too.
 
Alrighty well I got EasyBCD installed, heres what i've got thus far with pictures! What must I do to fix this?!

--- Debug View ---
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=D:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {c35c7399-e860-11dd-a2b8-a34248f6008e}
displayorder {466f5a88-0af2-4f76-9038-095b170dc21c}
{c35c7399-e860-11dd-a2b8-a34248f6008e}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 0
Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {466f5a88-0af2-4f76-9038-095b170dc21c}
device partition=D:
path \ntldr
description Windows XP Professional x86
Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {c35c7399-e860-11dd-a2b8-a34248f6008e}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {c35c739a-e860-11dd-a2b8-a34248f6008e}
nx OptIn
---
easybcd1.jpg


easybcd2.jpg


easybcd3.jpg


easybcd4.jpg



Thanks for the input on fixing this!
 
Easy Engmus.
look at the first screenshot - timeout(0)
In EasyBCD change settings, give yourself some time to see the menu
Timeout(0) is saying " take the default without asking me"
I use (5) which gives me enough time to select XP/W7/Ubuntu without unduly delaying my normal default into Vista.
 
Last edited:
ROFL:nerd:

How did that happen? Before Vista updates I had no problem with the boot loader and timeout.

I extended it to 20 and it worked...all that grief last night over something so simple...:??

Well...that was easy...hah

Thank you so much Terry.
 
If you didn't previously have Easy installed, and I take it you don't go round randomly issuing BCDedit commands from a cmd console, I don't know how it got reset.
It is one of the few boot things you can do from native Vista through a GUI though.
(Control Panel/System/Advance system settings/advanced /startup and recovery )
You didn't accidentally untick it in there did you ?
 
Negative good sir, the only changes I had made to this SP1 64bit Ultimate copy of vista where drivers and updates. Gotta get the core built sound before I start stripping and tweaking.

So I have no idea how that setting got defaulted to zero, or blanked out!
 
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