Vista 64/XP = PC wont boot

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dogtired

Member
I am trying to get these two OS's working on a single HDD.

I had a working Vista 64 installation, Gparted the 1tb to 2 500gb partitions.

Tried to install XP onto the Unallocated partition, which went okay, until 15secs to reboot, then it hung on "boot from cd..... ".

I have tried installing xp again. I have also tried repairing the vista install using the dvd. Because it didn't seem to work I tried again; It says there is nothing wrong with the startup and it should boot Vista, but I get a blank screen with a flashing cursor a couple of lines down.

I can boot okay from the cd's, but the HDD doesn't want to play ball.

---- I am currently formatting the XP partition and reinstalling XP, (although I dont think for a moment it will work). I have a succesful easyBCD installation Vista/XP/Ubuntu on another pc, which I seem to remember gave me the run around, so I know that I am gonna be going round in circles if I dont get any help. (The only way I can see, atm, to sort this is to forget it and do a complete format and reinstall, but I took a while setting up the Vista 64 and finding software that worked, so I dont really need that.)

I have looked through several pages of this forum and searched, but cannot come up with a thread that matches this problem. Your help will be greatly apprectiated. :smile:

Having looked again I can see that it is the same problem in a thread posted a couple of days ago, but is yet unanswered. error reading disk by vacaloca. It looks like this is one of those common problems, but I just cant get my head around it.
 
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Hello dogtired, welcome to NST

Things to try:
  1. Run chkdsk from your Vista DVD: "chkdsk c: /f"
  2. Try the manual recovery steps in our wiki
  3. Back up data
  4. If you got an image program, image Vista's partition. You can get disk copy here, a free disk image program you can boot from disk.
  5. Repartition the disk
  6. Re-install XP
  7. Restore Vista's image on its own partition
  8. Startup repair for Vista if necessary
  9. Add an XP entry for XP using EasyBCD 2.0 Beta
 
dogtired said:
I am trying to get these two OS's working on a single HDD.

I had a working Vista 64 installation, Gparted the 1tb to 2 500gb partitions.

Tried to install XP onto the Unallocated partition, which went okay, until 15secs to reboot, then it hung on "boot from cd..... ".
Click to expand...
Sounds like you forgot to put your HDD first in the boot sequence, and to take the CD out, after installing XP with the CD/DVD drive first in the boot order in the BIOS...:wink:

Jake
 
@ Coolname007: You are right DVD is first then HDD, but I am not getting to complete the xp install, I get as far as formatting the partition and preparing files...auto-reboot.... then hangs.

Will not continue the install, the only thing I can do is to boot from cd/dvd, but that just repeats the format/install step. :frowning:

@ kairozamorro: I will give these steps a try. I was hoping it was going to be something simple I wasnt doing right, but it sounds like its gonna be a long drawn out struggle. :S I will report back with my findings.
 
Dogtired, you know that you shouldn't "hit any key to boot from the CD" except the first time only ?
If you do, it'll just start all over again from the beginning, and never complete.
Just ignore that message during the auto-reboots, and it will be fine.
The CD/DVD must be before the HDD in the boot sequence though, otherwise the auto-reboot will try to boot the HDD as if the install has completed and that will fail. (because it hasn't obviously).
 
I may be stupid..... :tongueout:

:grinning:

My pc was set to boot from cd first, and I did not touch a key....my pc just hung on the message.

Anyway, I tried some of the helpful advice above then gave up. :grinning: I realized that I have another hard drive that I have formatted and added the operating systems to. (clean slate). I will be adding the old HDD to the system later to see if there is anything I want to keep, but I think its just gonna be a format.

I now have a new problem though! I have not searched the forums about this so there may already be an answer, (sorry if there is), I just thought I would add it to this quick reply..... I have Vista 64 installed, XP then installed. I have EasyBCD 1.7.1 installed, (i had errors with 1.7.2!), I had to reset the pc to get it to work okay....I did the write mbr thing, created an xp entry, then reset......I now can only boot into vista. there is no EasyBCD boot screen at all!
 
Get EasyBCD 2.0 (it automates adding the XP boot to Vista).
Add an entry for XP,let it create a boot.ini for you, and copy the files it will mention across to Vista from XP.
 
Thanks for the speedy advice Terry60 :grinning:

I shall be doing that right away. :wink:

Addendum:

Worked a treat Terry60, thanks. Now I can get back to "using" my pc for something productive. Sometimes I feel like all I do is problem solve and set things up!
 
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