Windows 7 and Xp dualboot Invalid Boot.ini

B

bdk09

Member
Hey everyone,

I tried to have a read through most threads that may be similar to my problem, though I wasn't able to find a solution. So here is my problem and I'll try to be as detailed as possible.

At one time I had grub installed and ran a triple boot. WinXP, WinXP, and Ubuntu. I made an image backup of one WINXP partition. Now I want to dual boot Win 7 and WinXP from my image backup.

HDD setup:

C: is Win7
D: is my backup drive
E: is my restored Image of Winxp.

All are separate physical drives. Copy and Paste from BCD

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {54c366d2-1139-11df-955e-d23bb9162b47}
resumeobject {54c366d1-1139-11df-955e-d23bb9162b47}
displayorder {54c366d2-1139-11df-955e-d23bb9162b47}
{54c366db-1139-11df-955e-d23bb9162b47}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {54c366d2-1139-11df-955e-d23bb9162b47}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7
locale en-US
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {54c366d3-1139-11df-955e-d23bb9162b47}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {54c366d1-1139-11df-955e-d23bb9162b47}
nx OptIn

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {54c366db-1139-11df-955e-d23bb9162b47}
device boot
path \NTLDR
description Microsoft Windows XP


Now my problem is I'm receiving:
Invalid Boot.ini Booting from C:\Windows\
NTDETECT Failed

I added the WinXP entry within EasyBCD and it's still giving me this error. I didn't change the drive path or anything. Also I'm using 2.0 BETA. Any help would be great!
 
Are you using the latest Build (80) ?
Fixes a boot.ini accidental omission which crept into some of the 7x builds.
Failing that, try giving the hidden "system" partition a letter if W7 created one, and delete/ add the XP entry again.
 
Yes I'm using 80. It seems to somewhat work now. It still says Invalid Boot.ini then it goes to Invalid or Missing NTOSKRNL.EXE So I presume it's missing that on the XP drive? Do you think I'm getting some where, or am I going further down the rabbit hole?

Here is more info:

I have the NTOSKRNL.EXE in both \Windows\System32 directories on both drives. So it isn't missing.
 
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EasyBCD -> Useful Utilities -> Power Console
Code: 
BootGrabber.exe /bootcfg \Device\HarddiskVolume1

Copy and paste the results here.
 
BootGrabber utility.
Copyright NeoSmart Technologies 2009-2010 <http://neosmart.net/>

Drive 0, Partition 2: Windows Vista+ (Ignored).
Drive 1, Partition 1: No Windows installation found.
Drive 2, Partition 1: Valid Windows 2k/XP/2k3 (Added).
Drive 3, Partition 1: No Windows installation found.
 
Windows is detecting that it's booting from a drive other than the one your PC actually boots from. You'll need to manually copy NTLDR, NTDETECT, and BOOT.INI to a different partition and try again.
 
K. Here it is. http://img504.imageshack.us/img504/9702/diskdrives.png

diskdrives.png



Addendum:


Also I followed the post above to give my hidden drive a letter and I did that. I gave it the letter Z: Here is the updated info:
BootGrabber utility.
Copyright NeoSmart Technologies 2009-2010 <http://neosmart.net/>

Drive 0, Partition 1: No Windows installation found.
Drive 0, Partition 2: Windows Vista+ (Ignored).
Drive 1, Partition 1: No Windows installation found.
Drive 2, Partition 1: Valid Windows 2k/XP/2k3 (Added).


There are a total of 2 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Windows 7
Timeout: 30 seconds.
Boot Drive: Z:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {54c366dc-1139-11df-955e-d23bb9162b47}
Device: boot
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

The boot.ini NTDLR and NTDETECT.COM were on all drive Z: Boot.ini is:

; This boot.ini was automatically generated by NeoSmart Technologies' BootGrabber.exe
; Use EasyBCD from Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies to manage your bootloader

[boot loader]
timeout=15
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP on E:\" /fastdetect


So I'm going to copy this to C: and see if it works.


Awesome! It boots now since I copied the files from Z: to C: Though my XP won't fully boot up.(Stops at the welcome screen) I guess it doesn't like the image I made or something. O Well I guess I'll have to do a fresh install, but at least I know how to fix this boot problem for the future!

Thanks so much for the help!
 
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It seems that you didn't give the "system" partition a letter, though you implied it didn't help in your post #3.
Then when later you did give it a letter, and EasyBCD correctly set up boot.ini for you, you don't appear to have tried to boot it.
You copied it to C:, then booted.
Did you try booting before copying to C: ?

(btw. Why have you installed XP to a logical drive ? the only reason to use one (especially for an OS) is if you need more than 4 partitions on the HDD, and even then you can still have 3 primaries for your OSs)
 
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Terry, I don't think so.

I don't even bother with letters *anywhere* in BootGrabber, so there's no way that the absence or presence of a letter on the system partition would affect the results. (that's also the reason I'm approaching this with an air of nonchalance, because there's no way this could reflect on a bug in BG).

It is odd though that Windows 7 looks in Z: for the boot files and NTLDR looks in C: instead.

Addendum:

Now I'm beginning to think there may be more to it than that :S :S :S

How can i setup two hard drive with W7 and XP - The NeoSmart Forums
 
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So i reinstalled Win Xp and followed my above steps though I ran into a problem. When I added XP to my add/remove entries and it copied over the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM Though it didn't copy the Boot.ini over to Z: So I'm going to try and use my old boot.ini from before and see how that goes.

Update: It seems the Boot.ini takes serveral minutes to appear when using EasyBCD. Everything is up and running again! Phew!
 
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