Windows XP update overwritten vista boot sector?

L

LittleLostRobot

Member
Hi,

I have a Vista and XP setup on 2 disks... Using EasyBCD everything has worked fine for over a month now. This evening while on the XP os, an update was dowloaded and installed when I shut my computer down. When I turned it back on I recieved a "NTLDR missing".

I assumed my boot record had been overwritten or tampered with by the XP Update so popped my Vista disk in for a startup recovery. However my vista installation is missing from the system recovery options screen which is empty. I tried to install the SATA drivers for my motherboard but this has had no effect. Both HD's appear to be working as they are detected and correctly identified in the bios. I can also browse the Vista drive when I click on the "Load drivers" button

Am I doing something wrong? why can't I get "System Recovery Options" window to recognise my operating system? all recovery functions fail without an operating system selected... which I can't do.

Was this really caused by the XP Update?

I would really appreciate it if someone out there could point me in the right direction, cheers.
 
Hi Robot, welcome to NST.
I'm guessing your XP is on an IDE disk and the Vista is a SATA ?
If so, you're experiencing what happened to me a couple of months ago (different cause)
Luckily, the fix is simple.
Shut down, turn off the power, disconnect the IDE disk temporarily, turn on and reboot with the Vista DVD.
You should now be able to see, and repair, your Vista system boot.
When it's done, reconnect the IDE disk and you're back as you were. (you'll probably need to add an XP entry in EasyBCD again )
 
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cheers for the reply even though they are 2 satas it didn't solve the problem.

I have concluded after trying the drive in my vista media machine, and even having a crack at it with knoppix, that the drive has failed... probably :smile: anyway its only 1 month old so its on its way back to be replaced.

I had to reset my bios today as well so I'm begining to wonder if there is something else causing the failures...
 
Sorry not to have helped. Some things just aren't fixable of course.
Good luck with the replacement hardware. Come back if you have any problems getting it set up, and we'll try to help.
 
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