XP, Win7 x2, Win 8 quad boot.. how to configure boot

KLund1

Member
Here's the deal as it stands now. I got a bootable install of win7 on my SSD. I got a non bootable win 8, win7, & XP on separate partitions on the same physical drive HDD. The 2 win7's used to be able to boot from the current boot menu, but after I installed win8, the win7 on the same HDD, would not boot. The win8 ran once after install, but never showed up on the boot menu after to reboot. The XP install stopped working after the first win7 install on the SSD.
I have added entries for win 8 with Easy BCD, but it would not boot. The entries for both win7's and XP have been on the boot menu from when they worked.
Amusing that the installs are intact but just not booting, can someone give me a step by step process with easy BCD to get the all the installs bootable?
Many thanks.

edit:
here are the error messages for the non booting OS entries
XP:
A recent Hardware or Software change.....
File \ntldr
status:0xc0000000e
info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt

Win7 HHD:
A recent Hardware or Software change.....
File \windows\system32\winload.exe
Status 0xc00000428
info: Windows can not verify the digital signature for this file

Win8: (same as win7)
A recent Hardware or Software change.....
File \windows\system32\winload.exe
Status 0xc00000428
info: Windows can not verify the digital signature for this file

Tanks again everyone for you help
 
Last edited:
You need to copy \windows\boot\pcat\bootmgr from the Windows 8 partition to the root of the boot partition.
 
Thanks for that.
There is already a file with that name on the root boot partition is win7 SSD (I'm asuming this is the main boot partition, just a guess). If I overwrite it, will win8 be the only bootable OS?
Also I'm not sure where my MBR is, nor which is my 'main' boot partition.
There is a file named bootmgr in the root of win7 SSD, win7 HHD, win8, and XP. all have file sized of 359KB, except win7 SSD is 875KB
 
bootmgr exists on all OSs since Vista.
It's backwards, not forwards compatible.
i.e. W8 will boot W7 and Vista
W7 will boot Vista but not W8
Vista won't boot either of the others
It sees a newer digital signature and that causes the inability to verify.
By copying the latest version into your live OS, you'll remove the invalid sig message.
 
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