For complicated reasons, I'm trying to build a system that will boot one of three WinXP systems. Having used EasyBCD to greatly simplify XP+Win7, I thought I'd be "clever" and make a user-friendly system by adding Win7, but only to then load EasyBCD and configure it to boot the three XP systems.
My first attempt almost worked. I have three disks, each with two primary partitions. D0P0 contained the original WinXP system. I turned off this disk, and installed a second WinXP system on D1P0. I then re-enabled Disk 0, so I had the following --
Disk 0, Partition 0, WinXP #1 Disk 0, Partition 1, empty
Disk 1, Partition 0, WinXP #2 Disk 1, Partition 1, empty
Disk 2, Partition 0, empty Disk 2, Partition 1, empty
When the system boots, it (of course) runs WinXP #1, unless Disk 0 is "turned off".
I then installed Windows 7 on Disk 2, Partition 1. I installed EasyBCD 2.0, and instructed it to make D0P0 (WinXP #1) the "default" disk, D1P0 (WinXP #2) another WinXP disk, and to identify itself as "Windows 7 (do not use)". When the system rebooted, it "did the right thing" -- gave me three options, and whichever I chose, I got an operating system running on a C: drive.
Then I "got greedy". I removed the Vista bootloader (saying "boot to XP" and rewriting the MBR), erased the Win7 partition, and built a third WinXP system on Disk 2 Partition 0. Actually, I cheated -- I backed up the system on D1P0, and restored it on D2P0 (with both Disk 0 and Disk 1 "turned off" so Disk 2 was the only disk during the restore). I then built Win7 again on D2P1, so I now have the following:
Disk 0, Partition 0, WinXP #1 Disk 0, Partition 1, empty
Disk 1, Partition 0, WinXP #2 Disk 1, Partition 1, empty
Disk 2, Partition 0, WinXP #3 Disk 2, Partition 1, Windows 7
When I loaded and ran EasyBCD 2.0 (from Windows 7), it had some old entries from the first time I did this, so I deleted them, leaving only the Windows 7 entry. I then tried to add a new entry, "pointing" to D0P0, D1P0, and D2P0 (using the drive letters that Windows 7 had assigned to these partition). In every case, I got the message "EasyBCD failed to detect a valid version of Windows NT-2003 on the selected drive". If I let it search "automatically", it says it fails to find a valid installation on "all mounted drives".
Any suggestions? I'm not sure if I need to go to "Bootloader Setup" or "BCD Backup/Repair". I'm also not sure which path in the Help files to follow, as I can't find this particular error message.
My first attempt almost worked. I have three disks, each with two primary partitions. D0P0 contained the original WinXP system. I turned off this disk, and installed a second WinXP system on D1P0. I then re-enabled Disk 0, so I had the following --
Disk 0, Partition 0, WinXP #1 Disk 0, Partition 1, empty
Disk 1, Partition 0, WinXP #2 Disk 1, Partition 1, empty
Disk 2, Partition 0, empty Disk 2, Partition 1, empty
When the system boots, it (of course) runs WinXP #1, unless Disk 0 is "turned off".
I then installed Windows 7 on Disk 2, Partition 1. I installed EasyBCD 2.0, and instructed it to make D0P0 (WinXP #1) the "default" disk, D1P0 (WinXP #2) another WinXP disk, and to identify itself as "Windows 7 (do not use)". When the system rebooted, it "did the right thing" -- gave me three options, and whichever I chose, I got an operating system running on a C: drive.
Then I "got greedy". I removed the Vista bootloader (saying "boot to XP" and rewriting the MBR), erased the Win7 partition, and built a third WinXP system on Disk 2 Partition 0. Actually, I cheated -- I backed up the system on D1P0, and restored it on D2P0 (with both Disk 0 and Disk 1 "turned off" so Disk 2 was the only disk during the restore). I then built Win7 again on D2P1, so I now have the following:
Disk 0, Partition 0, WinXP #1 Disk 0, Partition 1, empty
Disk 1, Partition 0, WinXP #2 Disk 1, Partition 1, empty
Disk 2, Partition 0, WinXP #3 Disk 2, Partition 1, Windows 7
When I loaded and ran EasyBCD 2.0 (from Windows 7), it had some old entries from the first time I did this, so I deleted them, leaving only the Windows 7 entry. I then tried to add a new entry, "pointing" to D0P0, D1P0, and D2P0 (using the drive letters that Windows 7 had assigned to these partition). In every case, I got the message "EasyBCD failed to detect a valid version of Windows NT-2003 on the selected drive". If I let it search "automatically", it says it fails to find a valid installation on "all mounted drives".
Any suggestions? I'm not sure if I need to go to "Bootloader Setup" or "BCD Backup/Repair". I'm also not sure which path in the Help files to follow, as I can't find this particular error message.