Windows 7 + Hard Disk with Previously Installed XP

G

grazueickap

Member
Hello there! I hope not to be double posting but I have read quite a few threads and found no help for this. Let me explain:

I am running a clean install of Windows 7 on my system. I have 4 hard disk drives. On one of these drives i Keep a stored set of .gho files that are the image created by Norton Ghost of the system drive of my PREVIOUS installation of Windows XP (i was using this on my system before installing Windows 7). What i want to do is to ghost that image back to a hard drive and be able to load either of the two OS's whenever i need (some stuff doesnt work good on W7 so i neeed my XP to run it).

I got the new hard drive, ghosted the image back on it (on another computer), and then connected this new drive in my system. Windows 7 loads, the boot asks me to choose which OS to load, but when I choose "previous Windows version" it gives me the NTLDR error i have seen reported many times here (0xc000000f). So i installed EasyBCD 2.0 Beta 78, created an entry, didn't succeed, tweaked a bit with the boot files on my ghosted drive (i still have the image so i can revert to that anytime) following the XP Troubleshooting, but no change.

Any help? Thanks in advance

GM

Edit: i forgot to add that when i create an entry in EasyBCD, when it asks me if I want to automatically install NTLDR and NTDETECT and configure boot.ini, if i say YES and continue, the program freezes
 
Last edited:
Do you have an unlettered "system" partition on the W7 installation ?
If so, give it a letter, delete and add the XP entry again, accepting the auto-configure.
 
Thanks Terry. It still freezes.

Anyway after i force close it and reopen it, the new entry is there, but I guess something went wrong anyway.

Another quetsion is: when I create the new entry, if I select the TYPe first it aumatically chooses C: as the DRIVE... on C: i have windows 7, my XP is on H:... so i select the drive first, then the TYPE... is this correct?

thanks!


GM

EDIT: aafter i posted the program didnt freeze... (go figure...) i created the entry but still i get the NTLDR error... maybe it will be useful to post snapshots of my HD configuration to check if something is setup wrong?
 
Last edited:
You don't change the XP drive.
The BCD doesn't point to XP.
It points to the copies of the XP boot files in the "system" partition. They point to XP
That's why EasyBCD "greys" it - to stop you pointing to the wrong place.
If you've altered it, try again and leave it alone.
 
Terry I'm not sure i understand....

i recovered exactly the original XP files on the H drive (ghosted again), but still it doesnt work, and BCD freezes. Is this because the boot files on the xp drive were created when the XP OS was physically on another drive? (it was C: as usual) do i have to edit them to make them point to the drive it is NOW physically on?

Edit: even if i don't change the xp drive, and leave the autodetermined C:, it freezes anyway.

thanks!

GM

PS. A weird thing that happened and that will hopefully help: after i ghosted back the XP OS to its original state, i disconnected all other hard disks and rebooted the system... i expected the old XP OS to boot since there was no other drive connected... WRONG!! the windows 7 boot appeared anyway! how is this possible?
 
Last edited:
Windows 7 will put it's boot files on "system" , so that would explain why you get a bootmgr menu even with W7 disconnected.
Are you restoring your XP image back to the same PC ?
If the registry in the image describes an environment which doesn't resemble the hardware it finds itself on, it's not surprising that the OS fails to boot.
Please post Disk Management and "display settings" as detailed at the end of the sticky thread.
 
Uh la la, it seems like i solved it...

i disconnected all drives and left only the ghosted XP on. rebooted and put the xp installation CDROM, and did a recovery of the system. after this, XP booted fine by itself (no other drives). I connected the drives, and logged on to Windows 7, everything OK. Rebooted, pressed F12 to choose the boot drive and selected the drive with XP, and XP booted. As it turns out, I don't even need EasyBCD. Should i try anyway to get EasyBCD working, or will it mess something up compromising this "stroke of luck"?

thanks


GM
 
The only problem you had previously was due to XP being misconfigured for the hardware. Now that you've repaired it, you can use EasyBCD 2 to add an entry to the W7 BCD and it will find a good XP to boot.
SInce the systems are on separate HDDs, you don't have to boot XP via W7, you can use the BIOS override if you choose. Entirely your choice.
 
Back
Top