Windows 7 / XP dual boot - XP not detected

J

jastpema

Member
Hi guys

This seems to be a wonderful bit of software - thanks for creating it and making it available.

I want to dual boot into my old XP install. My problem is that EasyBCD can't detect my XP install. It says is failed to detect a valid installation of XP. I suspect the problem is that my Windows folder is on a separate partition to my boot files, i.e., my C drive is a small FAT partition containing the boot files only. My D drive is an NTFS partition containing the WINDOWS folder.

Here's the output of BootGrabber.exe /tlist

C:\Program Files (x86)\NeoSmart Technologies\EasyBCD\bin>BootGrabber.exe /tlist
BootGrabber utility.
Copyright NeoSmart Technologies 2009-2010 <http://neosmart.net/>
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dbf8-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dbf9-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dbfb-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dbfc-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dbfd-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dbfe-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dbff-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dc0e-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dc0d-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
No active partition detected on disk 2.
D0,9,2,8,1000204886016,0
P1,W:\,6,263192576,247738368,Yes,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1),Yes,FAT
P0,,15,999937802240,0,Yes,,No,
P2,E:\,6,5369757696,5369757696,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(9),No,
P0,,5,5370806272,0,No,,No,
P3,F:\,6,5369757696,5369757696,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(9),No,
P0,,5,42951770112,0,No,,No,
P4,C:\,7,42950721536,27782426624,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4),No,NTFS
P0,,5,21476933632,0,No,,No,
P5,G:\,6,21475885056,21475885056,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(9),No,
P0,,5,53689188352,0,No,,No,
P6,H:\,6,53688139776,53688139776,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(9),No,
P0,,5,10739515392,0,No,,No,
P7,I:\,6,10738466816,10738466816,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(9),No,
P0,,5,107376279552,0,No,,No,
P8,J:\,6,107375230976,107375230976,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(9),No,
P0,,5,751621373952,0,No,,No,
P9,K:\,6,751620325376,751620325376,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(9),No,
D1,9,2,8,1000204886016,1
P1,D:\,6,271401984,270852096,Yes,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1),Yes,FAT
P0,,5,999684080640,0,Yes,,No,
P2,L:\,7,8595385344,3516633088,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2),No,NTFS
P0,,5,8595417600,0,No,,No,
P3,M:\,7,8595385344,4638846976,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3),No,NTFS
P0,,5,5371107840,0,No,,No,
P4,N:\,7,5371075584,3846348800,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4),No,NTFS
P0,,5,21476206080,0,No,,No,
P5,O:\,7,21476173824,13186363392,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(5),No,NTFS
P0,,5,107381030400,0,No,,No,
P6,P:\,7,107380998144,62087778304,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(6),No,NTFS
P0,,5,42952412160,0,No,,No,
P7,Q:\,7,42952379904,33771122688,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(7),No,NTFS
P0,,5,429499445760,0,No,,No,
P8,R:\,7,429499413504,144786198528,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(8),No,NTF
S
P0,,5,375813043200,0,No,,No,
P9,S:\,7,375813010944,115867320320,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(9),No,NTF
S
D2,2,1,2,500107862016,2
P0,,15,483194073600,0,Yes,,No,
P1,T:\,7,214753803264,85842919424,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1),No,NTFS
P0,,5,268440238080,0,No,,No,
P2,U:\,7,268440205824,105725927424,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(2),No,NTF
S
C:\Program Files (x86)\NeoSmart Technologies\EasyBCD\bin>

Thank you for your time in advance!

James
 
EasyBCD looks for a kernel version of 5.x and a Windows or WINNT folder, as evidence of an XP installation.
Chances are, you have overridden the install and used a non-standard XP folder name, in which case EasyBCD is never going to be able to second-guess you.
If this is so
rename the folder to Windows
add an XP entry with easyBCD (auto)
rename the folder back to yourname
Use EasyBCD > Tools > Edit legacy entries to locate the generated boot.ini
edit "Windows" to "yourname" in the default and OS sections.
 
I really appreciate this reply but my windows folder is called WINDOWS. It is on my D: partition, however, and my boot files are on the C: partition, alone.
 
That shouldn't matter.
If the aforementioned conditions are met, EasyBCD should find (multiple) XPs wherever they exist in relation to the boot files.
Does the Windows folder contain a \system32 folder ?
Did you let EasyBCD auto-configure ?
 
Yes the Windows folder contains a system32 folder.

And yes I let it auto configure, if by that you mean did I tick the box letting it find the drive letter automatically.
 
Just having a look at your OP, I notice that D: is FAT.
I'm not sure whether that's the problem

(CG - please comment)

There also appears to be something awry with the partition table on the other HDD, multiple partitions having the same ARC path (partition 9)
 
That's right - my C drive is a small FAT partition containing the boot files only. My D drive on the same hard disk is an NTFS partition containing the WINDOWS folder.
 
According to your OP, bootgrabber shows C is NTFS and D is FAT.
D is also not rdisk(0) i.e its not what you're booting from.
C is on rdisk(0) which has a seriously mucked-up partition table.
Can you post a Disk Management screenshot so we can see what Windows makes of this.
Which of your systems is Vista/7 ?
 
Ah yes - there's a known issue with BootGrabber being unable to auto-create XP dual-boots on systems where the boot partition is FAT32.

You should be using NTFS for a million different reasons, but until BootGrabber gets FAT support (SOON!), you'll need to convert your W:\ to NTFS (seeing as W: is the boot drive).

EasyBCD | Useful Utilities | Power Console

Code: 
convert W: /fs:ntfs
quit

Then delete the XP entry in EasyBCD and create it again.

Addendum:

Oh, and jastpema, welcome to the forums! Thanks for helping others out - as you can see, we're really short-handed here, and it's always great to have someone volunteering their knowledge and help!
 
Last edited:
Terry60 said:
According to your OP, bootgrabber shows C is NTFS and D is FAT.
D is also not rdisk(0) i.e its not what you're booting from.
C is on rdisk(0) which has a seriously mucked-up partition table.
Can you post a Disk Management screenshot so we can see what Windows makes of this.
Which of your systems is Vista/7 ?
Click to expand...

Yeah, that boot grab is from the new Windows 7 install. I meant C and D from my XP install's point of view. Ah, so confusing!

7 boots from W and is on C.

XP boots from D and is on L (from 7's point of view).

rdisk(0) is the new drive containing 7. I partitioned it by installing 7 elsewhere and doing it in the native Windows 7 partition manager. I did this because at the 7 install partition screen you can not create logical partitions (stupid Windows!).

It might be mucked up because I wanted 1 primary and 8 logicals, but it created 3 primaries before creating a logical so I had to create and delete 2 primaries to get it done.

Why is it so hard to get things the way you want them in Windows! It was easier in XP....
 
From the BG output, it's clear that both 7 and XP would boot from "W:" (or the partition that is W: when seen from within 7). As Terry says, the drive letter itself is meaningless.
 
I removed the 3rd hard drive and all the empty partitions from rdisk(0) to simplify things and reproduced the tlist:

C:\Program Files (x86)\NeoSmart Technologies\EasyBCD\bin>BootGrabber.exe /tlist
BootGrabber utility.
Copyright NeoSmart Technologies 2009-2010 <http://neosmart.net/>
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dc0e-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{e8e1dc0d-dfa8-11df-8162-806e6f6e
6963}\
D0,2,2,1,1000204886016,0
P1,W:\,7,263192576,224567296,Yes,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1),Yes,NTFS
P0,,15,999937802240,0,Yes,,No,
P2,C:\,7,42950721536,27315019776,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2),No,NTFS
D1,9,2,8,1000204886016,1
P1,D:\,7,271401984,247853056,Yes,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1),Yes,NTFS
P0,,5,999684080640,0,Yes,,No,
P2,L:\,7,8595385344,3466063872,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2),No,NTFS
P0,,5,8595417600,0,No,,No,
P3,M:\,7,8595385344,4633886720,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3),No,NTFS
P0,,5,5371107840,0,No,,No,
P4,N:\,7,5371075584,3846873088,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(4),No,NTFS
P0,,5,21476206080,0,No,,No,
P5,O:\,7,21476173824,13067214848,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(5),No,NTFS
P0,,5,107381030400,0,No,,No,
P6,P:\,7,107380998144,62087778304,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(6),No,NTFS
P0,,5,42952412160,0,No,,No,
P7,Q:\,7,42952379904,33769988096,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(7),No,NTFS
P0,,5,429499445760,0,No,,No,
P8,R:\,7,429499413504,144777658368,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(8),No,NTF
S
P0,,5,375813043200,0,No,,No,
P9,S:\,7,375813010944,107973046272,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(9),No,NTF
S
C:\Program Files (x86)\NeoSmart Technologies\EasyBCD\bin>

A screenshot of Win7 Disk Manager is attached below.

My main problem of the dual boot is now all sorted after converting the boot drive from FAT to NTFS, so thanks very much guys!

Fantastic bit of software - thank you for your time and effort.
 

Attachments

  • Jastpema Disk Manager.png
    Jastpema Disk Manager.png
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I really must learn to scroll back further.
When I replied in #11, I hadn't noticed that CG had already replied in #9, confirming my suspicion in #6, so the screenshot wasn't necessary for further diagnosis after all.
Glad you're sorted now.
Stick around.
 
Thanks - I really appreciate your help!

Can I just ask though, which field in the flist led you to state that the partition table was messed up, and what does that field mean?
 
Each entry in the listing that says "P0" means that it's an extended partition. Look at D0 in the original tlist and how many P0 it has!

You should have up to 3 primary partitions, and up to 1 extended partition which contains as many logical partitions as you like. Except in your case, you have an extended partition for each logical partition, exceeding the 4 partition limit (somehow!).

And the ARC path should be unique for each partition - yet notice how in your first tlist so many partitions have "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(9)" as their ARC path!!

The bug in bootgrabber that prevents it from working on FAT32 boot partitions needs to be corrected.... Must. Find. Time!

And as Terry says, stick around :smile:
 
Hi All,

Am facing the same problem. Not able to login to XP...it does not come in the Windows Boot Manager Screen.. After a long time I had logged into Vista and updated some windows updates... Next when started my PC got this 'BOOTMGR' is missing message. I first tried to restore through Vista DVD but did not work. I went for repair after which there was no XP option.

EasyBCD's Add Entry does not show me the XP bootloader..
Here is what BootGrabber.exe /bootcfg shows:


BootGrabber utility.
Copyright NeoSmart Technologies 2009-2010 <http://neosmart.net/>



Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{893f04b8-0a1a-11df-be8f-806e6f6e6963}\

Located active partition on drive 0: \ArcName\multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)

Drive 0, Partition 1: No Windows installation found.
Drive 0, Partition 2: Windows Vista+ (Ignored).
Drive 0, Partition 3: Valid Windows 2k/XP/2k3 (Added).
Drive 0, Partition 4: No Windows installation found.
Failed to create file to \ArcName\multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\Boot.ini. Error code: 0xc0000022.


Seems XP is still there....

And here is the output of BootGrabber.exe /tlist


BootGrabber utility.
Copyright NeoSmart Technologies 2009-2010 <http://neosmart.net/>



Unable to get volume information for \\?\Volume{893f04b8-0a1a-11df-be8f-806e6f6e6963}\

D0,4,4,1,250059350016,0
P1,F:\,12,3224277504,3202416640,Yes,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1),Yes,FAT32

P2,C:\,7,36701167616,11571142656,Yes,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2),No,NTFS

P3,D:\,7,31453470720,7846211584,Yes,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3),No,NTFS

P0,,15,181852715520,0,Yes,,No,

P4,E:\,7,178628373504,62685765632,No,multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4),No,NTFS

P0,,5,3224309760,0,No,,No,
 
Hi prdnitjsr,

You have the same problem, your boot drive is FAT32.

EasyBCD | Useful Utilities | Power Console
Code: 
convert f: /fs:ntfs

And then try again.
 
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