vista/xp dual boot: xp installed, trouble starting vista

T

tina

Member
hey,

I am trying to dual boot my lenovo laptop that came with windows vista to run xp also.
I sucessfully installed xp and now the computer can run xp. I also installed Easybcd on xp so that i cud restore the vista boot records. Now when i start the system, it shows me both vista and xp to choose from, but if i select to start vista, it takes me to the screen asking if i want to start windows normally, and after that it just doesnt go to the login page and restarts.

I have been reading thro many of these forums to figure wats the problem, and finally cant seem to fix things by myself, so posting for help here, pls help me out here.

The recovery disk that i had created for vista isnt working becos, i had made tat before i made the partition and now the image is large to try a recovery. The laptop did not come with any other vista installation cds. I burned a vista recovery cd i found on neosmart. and tried to boot thro that, it says there was a startup problem and then it searches the problem and all its tests area success but it cant fix the system.

I have tried some of the following commands to fix the boot problem.
bootrec /fixmbr , bootrec /fixboot, bootrec /rebuildbcd

it gives a message saying "total identified windows installations: 0 "

I saw in some thread to go to the E drive, whr my xp is installed and export

i had the following commands thr,

bcdedit /export C:\bcd_backup
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
bootrec /rebulidbcd
this results in
total identified windows installations :1
and asks
add installation to boot list. for which i chose Y
and the operation completes successfully,

now i go back to x:>windows>system32 and try "bootrec /fixmbr , bootrec /fixboot, bootrec /rebuildbcd" commands and it goes back to saying "total identified windows installations :0"

Thats about till where I have got.. Please help out.
 
Hi Tina. Welcome to NST.
It sounds like your Vista boot files must be corrupted, and that is why it wont boot when you choose to "Start Windows normally". This could have happened because of too many hard resets (holding down the power button, and doing an improper shutdown). You can try resetting the BCD from within EasyBCD in XP, as well as reinstalling the Vista bootloader if that doesn't work. You will find these options in the "Manage Bootloader" and the "Diagnostics Center" sections of EasyBCD, I believe...:wink:

Cheers, and let us know if this fixes the issue.

-Coolname007
 
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Hi, Thanks for the response, I was out two days, Now when i come back to try your suggestion, I am not able to get the dual boot screen anymore, it only gives me the windows error recovery screen, which i think is for Vista, and as before the start windows normally on this screen will only try to start but end up restarting and back to the windows error recovery screen. so I am not able to get to xp either now. Please suggest if i can set the xp/vista back correct by going into the command prompt thro the help of the recovery disk. Then i can go access the easy bcd in one of the OS. Thanks for your help.
 
Boot from your XP cd and enter the recovery console. Login to your XP installation there and use the following:

Code: 
fixboot
fixmbr

Upon restart you should now be able to get back into XP again. See if the Vista recovery dvd you burned from your OEM (not ours as it cant be used for installs) can be used to re-install Vista to a specific partition. You should rescue any important files from Vista's drive first and re-format before re-installing Vista there. Vista's installer should pick up on XP being present from there and set up the dual-boot for you.
 
To install(repair) the xp on the E drive, its prompting me to give the administrator passord, i dont have one, its not accepting a blank, any suggestions on this?

Addendum:

The OEM recovery disk - One key recovery of lenovo, is an image of the hard disk befre i partioned it, so it keeps saying, disk space not enough. Let me know what I can do. I am also ready to may be re size the HD(i need to figure out how to do this) to install the vista recovery and do the reinstallation of xp. I am trying to see if all tat work can be avoided by some easier fix to the boot.
 
Last edited:
tina said:
To install(repair) the xp on the E drive, its prompting me to give the administrator passord, i dont have one, its not accepting a blank, any suggestions on this?
Click to expand...

If you're not the administrator, then you need to get the password from whoever has an administrator account on that computer. :wink:

Jake
 
If you can than do a repair install with your XP CD. Its a little extreme here but necessary since you don't know the password for the builtin admin account. That should at least get you back into XP where assuming you got your own admin account, should be able to change the builtin admin account's password for future use if case need be.
 
Hi,

I now have xp repair install done. I opened Easy BCD and in View settings this is what i see

There is one entry in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium

Entry #1

Name: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

On Manage Bootloader I selected reinstall the Vista Bootloader and write MBR

The in the Diagnostics center, When i select recreate mising /deleted boot files and Rescue my system. it asks me to enter the boot drive, to know which is the boot drive i searched for ntldr, but cudnot find it in the system, I found bootmgr in a lot of locations, C:\Windows\Boot\PCAT ; E:\ ; C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-b..re-bootmanager-pcat_etc.
which should i choose as the boot drive? Let me know what i need to do after i select the boot drive and recreate the boot files

Addendum:

oh and Jake, thank you for the simpler suggestion, but i just saw it after all was done :smile:.
 
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tina said:
The in the Diagnostics center, When i select recreate mising /deleted boot files and Rescue my system. it asks me to enter the boot drive, to know which is the boot drive i searched for ntldr, but cudnot find it in the system, I found bootmgr in a lot of locations, C:\Windows\Boot\PCAT ; E:\ ; C:\Windows\winsxs\x86_microsoft-windows-b..re-bootmanager-pcat_etc.
which should i choose as the boot drive? Let me know what i need to do after i select the boot drive and recreate the boot files
Click to expand...

That is easy. :smile: E:\ should be the right partition since it contains the bootmgr in the root. Your XP boot files (boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com) need to copied over into the same partition and an XP entry added to your Vista boot menu in the Add/Remove Entries section of EasyBCD, with the "/NT/XP..." option selected in the "Type" menu. Now when you reboot you should still be able to boot into XP (via the Vista boot menu), and now should be able to also boot into Vista as well. :wink:
Addendum:

oh and Jake, thank you for the simpler suggestion, but i just saw it after all was done :smile:.
Click to expand...
Yeah...actually I just found that option a few minutes ago, when I noticed you were online and viewing this thread. So I did a search right then for what to do when you forget an administrator password on XP, and that was one of the things I came up with. :wink: But since all that time had passed already, I suspected you might have got it already fixed by now...but I thought "what the heck" and decided to post it anyway. :brows: Too bad. It was worth a try.

Jake
 
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whr do i copy the xp boot files from, xp is the OS installed in E:, Vista is installed in C:, are you sure E wud be the boot drive?

Addendum:

Also, wen i add/remove entry for XP, should i choose E: instead of C: as my XP is on E: Drive?

Addendum:

OK, i selected the E drive while adding the XP entry, and below is how the view setting now looks like.
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium

Entry #1

Name: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry #2

Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {6d579d48-10b7-11de-a795-be8e09b608b6}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

Addendum:

I restarted the system after this, and it directly startd to load xp, and now it goes to a blank screen and just stops there with the pointer, something must have gone wrong with the way it loads.
 
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tina said:
whr do i copy the xp boot files from, xp is the OS installed in E:, Vista is installed in C:, are you sure E wud be the boot drive?
Click to expand...
You will find them in the root of the partition that was "active" when you installed XP. :wink: In my case, this was the XP partition, but it doesn't have to be. It all depends on what order you installed the OSes. If you installed Vista after XP, then the XP boot files will likely already be in the "system" partition as seen from Disk Management. But if you installed XP after Vista (which is what I did) with say, the XP partition "active" at time of install, then you will likely find the XP boot files in your XP partition. Incidentally, I was only saying to copy them if they are not already in the "system" partition's root.
Addendum:

Also, wen i add/remove entry for XP, should i choose E: instead of C: as my XP is on E: Drive?
Click to expand...
Not unless your XP partition is "system". :wink: You need to point the entry at the "system" partition, and copy the XP boot files into that partition's root if not already there, and then point boot.ini back at the XP partition. If you use 2.0 Beta of EasyBCD, then you can use the built-in autoconfigurator to configure boot.ini correctly for you when you add a new XP entry (or as a alternative, go to the Tools menu, and select "Auto configure boot.ini"), to make the process much simpler.
Addendum:

OK, i selected the E drive while adding the XP entry, and below is how the view setting now looks like.
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium

Entry #1

Name: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry #2

Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {6d579d48-10b7-11de-a795-be8e09b608b6}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

Addendum:

I restarted the system after this, and it directly startd to load xp, and now it goes to a blank screen and just stops there with the pointer, something must have gone wrong with the way it loads.
Click to expand...

Most likely it is because your XP boot files are not in the "system" partition's root, and/or boot.ini is not configured correctly...:wink:

Cheers.

Jake
 
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