I have a Dell Optiplex A10 Plus 7420 running Windows 11 Pro. I want to dual boot with Windows XP. I have restored a backed up copy of Windows XP onto a D drive and have been unable to configure the boot loader to find the Windows XP partition. Furthermore I believe critical elements are missing such as Ntldr, Boot.ini etc... I downloaded multiple copies of the Windows XP Recovery EasyRE ISO and successfully installed a copy on a bootable 16GB USB stick formatted Fat32 using Easy USB Creator . Or so I thought but the USB won't boot. I've tried other USB creator tools such as ISO to USB and Rufus but to no avail. Can anyone suggest what I'm doing wrong?
Windows Recovery USB wont boot
- Thread starter Graham UK
- Start date
If your PC is UEFI, it won't be able to multiboot with XP.
If it's a legacy MBR/BIOS then you should be able to add XP to the W11 BCD using EasyBCD.
Just add an entry for XP, but let EasyBCD auto configure. It will add all the necessary boot components automatically and place them where they need to be.
Don't second guess EasyBCD and alter what it sets up. It didn't make a mistake, the boot chain has to start from the "active" partition.
If it's a legacy MBR/BIOS then you should be able to add XP to the W11 BCD using EasyBCD.
Just add an entry for XP, but let EasyBCD auto configure. It will add all the necessary boot components automatically and place them where they need to be.
Don't second guess EasyBCD and alter what it sets up. It didn't make a mistake, the boot chain has to start from the "active" partition.