Win 7 and XP - Newbie pulling hair out (not much left)

S

samhain

Member
Dear all,

Pleasure to be here but I really need help in getting this sorted. I am building a PC for father in law and he has two SATA discs. The first in the chain and the one that loads up automatically is Windows 7 64 bit RC. The second disk is Windows XP 32 bit. So, they are on separate drives as opposed to partitions of the same drive.

He needs to be able to access both OS from th main selection screen and I have downloaded EasyBCD to help me do it. I know that I cannot alter the boot.ini file in XP for a newer OS.

Here are some images of my system as I go through the process.



This is an image of my disk management, which shows both SATA discs. The bigger disc is Windows 7 and the smaller XP.



I found these instructions from someone who has the same problems as me so I used them. See I have searched!!

I followed the instructions right down to point 9.



However, here's where something is not right. I was not offered to change the boot.ini or to place any copy of ntdlr or ntdetect to any system folder. So that hasn't happened even after I saved within the same screen. I don't have an autoconfigurator option withinin tools.

Here is an image of my XP Root directory and as you can see the boot.ini, ntdlr and ntdetect are all where they should be.




Here is a second image of the Win7 root directory. I had copied the ntdlr, ntdetect and boot.ini to this area but removed them as was unsure about there correctness.



Then when I saved the extra line within easyBCD there is an extra entry on the list;



What interests me in this image is that under W7 there is a full path to Winload.exe but on the xp path it merely says c:/ ntdlr

So when you select the XP as the power on the PC, if ntdlr, boot.ini and ntdetect is to be copied from the XP partition to the W7 partition then is the system jumping straight to the W7 version of ntdlr which is in the root directory then looks at boot.ini and it is then up to the contents of the boot.ini to cross over the system to the other drive?

Perhaps the only thing I am missing is that, if those 3 files need to be copied over to Windows 7 root, then the boot.ini needs to be absolutely correct in it's instruction to load XP. Perhaps I don't have the right drive, partition etc numbers to get to the correct place. Any help would be appreciated particularly when you see the disk management arrangemments.

Here is a copy of my current boot.ini file, but this was created when no other disks were present so it has a disk of zero, but as you can see from disk management this has a disk of 1. Does this mean it should say 1 or not? Or is it rdisk that should say 1?




Thanks very much

Stewart
 
Last edited:
Hello Stewart, welcome to NST

EasyBCD 1.7.x doesn't contain the auto-configure logic. Grab EasyBCD 2.0 Beta, build 63 from here. Delete the entry for XP and re-add it. If it asks to auto-configure select yes.
 
samhain said:
Dear all,

Pleasure to be here but I really need help in getting this sorted. I am building a PC for father in law and he has two SATA discs. The first in the chain and the one that loads up automatically is Windows 7 64 bit RC. The second disk is Windows XP 32 bit. So, they are on separate drives as opposed to partitions of the same drive.

He needs to be able to access both OS from th main selection screen and I have downloaded EasyBCD to help me do it. I know that I cannot alter the boot.ini file in XP for a newer OS.

Here are some images of my system as I go through the process.



This is an image of my disk management, which shows both SATA discs. The bigger disc is Windows 7 and the smaller XP.



I found these instructions from someone who has the same problems as me so I used them. See I have searched!!

I followed the instructions right down to point 9.



However, here's where something is not right. I was not offered to change the boot.ini or to place any copy of ntdlr or ntdetect to any system folder. So that hasn't happened even after I saved within the same screen. I don't have an autoconfigurator option withinin tools.
Click to expand...
As Justin said (and as I stated in the same instructions you posted a screenshot of), you need to use EasyBCD 2.0 Beta, Build 63 for that automatic reconfigure boot.ini/create NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM in the root of the "system" partition (which is Win 7's partition in your case) feature. The reconfigure boot.ini option has existed with the first 2.0 beta release, but the feature where it creates a new NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM in the root of the "system" partition has only been added in Build 63. :wink:
Here is an image of my XP Root directory and as you can see the boot.ini, ntdlr and ntdetect are all where they should be.




Here is a second image of the Win7 root directory. I had copied the ntdlr, ntdetect and boot.ini to this area but removed them as was unsure about there correctness.
Click to expand...
You shouldn't have removed them, because that's where they need to be on your system (though you should leave the copies of the files on the XP partition just in case you need them later on down the road).


Then when I saved the extra line within easyBCD there is an extra entry on the list;



What interests me in this image is that under W7 there is a full path to Winload.exe but on the xp path it merely says c:/ ntdlr
Click to expand...
That is because NTLDR is placed in the root of the "system" partitition (C: in your case). The Vista/Win 7 boot file "winload.exe" is supposed to exist in the Windows/System32 directory though on your Win 7 partition. The other two Vista/Win 7 boot files (bootmgr and BCD) exist in the root of the "system" partition too, and that is what points at the location of winload.exe, so Vista can load.
So when you select the XP as the power on the PC, if ntdlr, boot.ini and ntdetect is to be copied from the XP partition to the W7 partition then is the system jumping straight to the W7 version of ntdlr which is in the root directory then looks at boot.ini and it is then up to the contents of the boot.ini to cross over the system to the other drive?
Click to expand...
Exactly. The Win 7 bootmgr will pass control over to the NTLDR on the "system" partition (Win 7 in your case), which in turn will call up BOOT.INI, and then use it to locate the XP partition, where NTDETECT.COM will assist NTLDR with the loading of XP.
Perhaps the only thing I am missing is that, if those 3 files need to be copied over to Windows 7 root, then the boot.ini needs to be absolutely correct in it's instruction to load XP. Perhaps I don't have the right drive, partition etc numbers to get to the correct place. Any help would be appreciated particularly when you see the disk management arrangemments.

Here is a copy of my current boot.ini file, but this was created when no other disks were present so it has a disk of zero, but as you can see from disk management this has a disk of 1. Does this mean it should say 1 or not? Or is it rdisk that should say 1?



Thanks very much

Stewart
Click to expand...
It is rdisk() (not disk() ) in your boot.ini file that should say 1, since your Win 7 drive is drive 0 in the BIOS's mind. So the correct values would be rdisk(1) and partition(1), but you will need to change both lines in your boot.ini file to say that, i.e. the one above [operating systems] (the default entry), and the one below it. But, you don't need to do that manually if you use EasyBCD 2.0 Beta, Build 63 because it will do all the hard work for you, so you wont have to. :smile:

Cheers!

Jake
 
Last edited:
Thanks chaps, most kind. I can't believe I didn't have the latest version as the download, all is now working.

Also, thanks for the clarifications on the rdisk etc, that has helped my understanding immensly and this is appreciated.

Regards

Stewart
 
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