XP won't boot after Vista install

B

bodhi

Member
Hi, i've read the wiki's and looked thru many of the postings here.

I think my problem is I don't know what configuration to edit for the boot.ini, as the drive letters have changed after the Vista install. I've blindly tried many configurations for the boot.ini, changing the rdisk and partition numbers. Boot.ini, ntdetect and ntldr are in the root directory of the Vista drive. Booting from the Vista dvd, the repair system feature says there's no problem.

Vista is on IDE, XP is on Sata. When I remove the power supply to the hard drive that Vista is on I can boot into XP fine.

This is what works for XP:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.2
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS.2="Custom Win XP Pro" /fastdetect

In the 'add/remove entries' section of EasyBCD, under the Linux drive listing I get:
XP is drive 0, partition 0.
Vista is drive 1, partition 0.

Suggestions? Thanks.
 
I ran into that snag here while having Vista on a 250gb ide default and XP on the first of two larger sata models. The section in the Wiki on installing XP after Vista will help here following a boot up with the XP installation disk to the recover console to use the "Fixboot" and "Fixmbr" commands after logging onto the correct Windows installation shown probably as D Windows -2.

Editing the boot.ini won't work since the correct changes needed will be seen with the commands used to see XP load up and then run the EasyBCD tool. Read the segment on setting up the dual boot in the help section. http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Installing+XP+After+Vista

The troubleshooting section for XP is seen at http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Troubleshooting+Windows+XP
 
bodhi,
You say that XP boots fine if you power-off the Vista disk, but that all the XP boot files are in the Vista root ?
This must mean that you're picking up an old set of XP boot files from the XP original pre dual-boot on the other disk.
The problem you're having with the XP boot from the Vista system is because the boot.ini on the Vista system is pointing to the wrong partition.
 
Thanks for the suggestion Terry. When I want to boot up in XP I put the boot.ini and other files back on the XP drive and it starts up without a hitch.
 
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I'm not sure I understand - are you saying that every time you need to reboot into XP you need to move some files?
 
No not every time I reboot. Only if I disconnect the Vista drive. Then I copy the old boot.ini files back to the root drive of XP.
 
You just need to play around with the boot.ini values. I really can't help you more than that - only you could know the right values for boot.ini

Try changing the value of rdisk to its current value + 1.
 
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