xp wont boot from loader missing ntdetect

jim g

Member
I had multiple problems doing this dual boot install but this morning XP worked fine but could not boot vista. So I reinstalled vista using my hp restore disc now vista works fine but I can't boot XP from Ebcd. It says ntdetect missing from c:\ It originally said both ntdlr and ntdetect were missing but I downloaded them from this site added them to the C: drive then was unable to load anything until I ran repair,now I am back in Vista but it removed ntdetect from c:. My Computer lists my drives as C:\ HP (Vista OS) a partition named D:Factory Image and on a seperate sata drive E:\ Windows XP. When I tried to repair from the XP disc it recognizes the XP install as D:\ I tried to copy the missing files from the install disc to that dir but even with admin privileges it said access denied. Any ideas?
 
Well, NTDETECT and NTLDR must both be on drive C:\ (assuming that is the boot drive).

There is no way around this. Is drive C: a SATA drive or ATA?
 
So let me see if i can make sense of this. With the NTLDR and the NTDETECT files on teh C:\ drive you can boot to XP but not Vista. But without those 2 files you can boot to Vista but not XP.

Is that right?
 
Not Exactly

I have not been able to boot back to XP since I did the factory restore. When I put both files in the c:\ drive I could not boot to Vista until I ran the repair option during which it deleted ntdetect file.

Addendum:

I just put the files into the c:\ drive not in any directory.
 
Last edited:
That is where they should be. Just in the root of the drive not in any directory. :wink:

Well restoring the Factory defaults would have deleted the XP entry from teh BCD. Have you added it back?
 
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