The BIOS shows 'OnChip SATA Type having three options:
Native IDE
RAID
ACHI
Came with ACHI set. I tried other two - boot would not recognize DVD
drive nor XP SP3 disk.
Strikes me that even if I do get this thing to allow XP install/run,
that the sysem still won't allow XP and W7 to co-exist and multi-boot.
Sure it will. Again, moving on your existing trajectory
(Windows 7 installed first, WinXP second), the install will
need some slight tweaks, but you can get Windows 7 to
continue managing the boot after that. It's just a bit
harder. And you'll have some annoying things happen along the
way.
If I was doing it here, and I was doing the process in the
previous paragraph, I'd want two computers. The second
computer would be a working computer, for researching on
the Internet, while my first computer is "completely broken".
It's going to be that kind of experience. But, you can
get it to work.
I would ask you the question "how much effort would it
be to install Windows 7 again", as a means of reducing
the work required for your dual boot. If you cleaned
off the disk (use Diskpart in recovery console), you could
start over again with the WinXP step. Then install Windows 7.
If you have room somewhere for backups, you could take a
backup snapshot of your Windows 7 work to date. If you
don't like how things are going, just put Windows 7 back
again. It really all depends on what you have invested
in Windows 7, as to whether it's worth doing it the
harder way. I would certainly try it, because I do
stuff like that "for the experience"
XP PRO SP3
I'd have to add a floppy drive to the system, which I can do.
So that sounds like you're reasonably well prepared. If you
leave it set at AHCI, ahd you have the floppy drive available
to you, you can press F6 when prompted by the WinXP installer CD,
and offer the txtsetup.oem and associated files.
So really, the tougher part, is doing the WinXP install,
then repairing the damage so you can use Windows 7 later.
WinXP cannot (easily) manage the booting of Windows 7,
but Windows 7 can manage WinXP. That's why, once WinXP
is installed, you need to put back the Windows 7 MBR,
set the appropriate Windows 7 partition boot flag to
active, so that Windows 7 will again boot. Then modify
the BCD with bcdedit (or use the tool that rebuilds
a BCD), so that the Windows 7 boot menu has two
entries in it - Win7 on one line, WinXP on the other.
So let's draw some pictures. The below are not drawn to
scale, and the OS partitions are much larger than SYSTEM
RESERVED (booting) partition. Win7 OS and WinXP OS
have the majority of files. Some Windows 7 installations,
the SYSTEM RESERVED is rolled into the Win7 partition.
But if you didn't take special precautions, it looks my
drawing. So this is your disk right now. Note that the
SYSTEM RESERVED could be in front of or behind Win7 OS,
and that aspect isn't particularly important. Actually,
I just changed my drawing, to the way that leaves room
to shrink or adjust the size of Windows 7. If Win7 OS
is on the right, we can shrink or expand the end, to make
room for the WinXP install.
+------------+------------------+-----------+------------------+
| Win7 MBR | SYSTEM RESERVED | Win7 OS | (empty) |
| | Boot flag = 0x80 | | |
+------------+------------------+-----------+------------------+
If you use Disk Management, now would be a good time to set
the "label" on the Win7 OS partition to "WIN7" so you can
check you're accessing the correct partition at a later
date. Once I have my WinXP installed, I'd set the label
on that one to "WINXP" for the same reasoning. Label
the partitions when you get a chance.
OK, now we install WinXP. And two things get damaged. Now,
WinXP boots, but there is no sign of Windows 7.
+------------+------------------+-----------+------------------+
| WinXP MBR | SYSTEM RESERVED | Win7 OS | WinXP OS |
| Oops! | | | Boot flag = 0x80 |
+------------+------------------+-----------+------------------+
Boot Windows 7 installer DVD. Enter the recovery console.
It looks like a command prompt. You can see a command prompt
option at the bottom here. The installer DVD will probe
the partitions, and identify the partition with Windows 7
on it. (You can experiment with this now if you want,
and make sure the process goes smoothly. Type "exit" in the
Command Prompt window, and try and do a clean shutdown when
you're done.)
http://cdn.ghacks.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/F11xx19.bmp
The whole sequence for Recovery Console, is in this picture.
http://imageshack.us/a/img266/1904/eqz.gif
OK, now we need some recipes.
There's a "bootrec /fixmbr" here. The idea here, is to
put back the Win7 MBR, because that's a necessary part
of booting Windows 7 first (the boot manager thing).
(Click the "Bootrec.exe options" button on the web page.)
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392
There is also bootsect, but it can do both the partition boot
sector, as well as the MBR boot sector. And all we really want,
is a "Vista or greater" compatible MBR. You could use
bootsect /help first, to review the options.
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744577(v=WS.10).aspx
My guess is, the command would be:
bootsect /nt60 E: /mbr
since in the DVD scanning panel in my example imageshack photo,
my Windows 7 is labeled as E: . It uses the partition letter,
to figure out which hard drive to blast.
So bootsect is another way to fix the MBR, but it might
be a less preferred way to do it.
Now, the second job, is to move the boot flag.
It doesn't look like bootrec can do that, so
we use diskpart instead. The commands are typed
in capital letters, to make the commands easier to read
on the web page.
http://www.thpc.info/how/make_active.html
DISKPART (to open the partition utility)
LIST DISK (disk number(s) will be shown)
SELECT DISK n (where n is the number of the disk - probably 0)
LIST PARTITION (partition number(s) will be shown)
SELECT PARTITION n (where n is the number of the Primary partition
you wish to make Active)
*--- this would be SYSTEM RESERVED, if present
ACTIVE (the selected partition on the selected disk will be made Active)
*--- this sets the boot flag to 0x80 on the Selected Partition
EXIT (to exit DiskPart)
EXIT (to exit the Command Prompt)
If you get this one wrong, you'll be in serious
trouble. Because then, neither copy of Windows will boot.
And we need to do both of these commands, in the
same Recovery Console session. I wouldn't do
it this way, if that wasn't a requirement.
Now, it's actually easy to fix that, if you
get the diskpart wrong. There are at least a couple
methods. I could boot my Linux LiveCD and
fix the boot flag from there. Or, I could
carry the hard drive to my "working" computer,
and fix it from there. So when I say "serious
trouble", it would only be serious trouble
if I only owned the one computer.
At this point, now Windows 7 boots and WinXP does
not boot. The next step, involves either BCDEdit or
EasyBCD, but we'll leave that for another day.
(Like maybe, later today...)
*******
I'll need to dig around for a good bcdedit tutorial,
because bcdedit is a bear to work with. It might almost
be easier to do "bootrec /rebuildBCD", but where would
the fun be in that ? Let's hope the /rebuildBCD option
keeps a backup file, in case it fouls up. That's perhaps
what I don't like about the option - powerful, but
could make a mess if it goes wrong.
At one time, EasyBCD was free. And in those
days, I'd have had no trouble recommending it.
It was a fine product. And being GUI based,
not nearly as painful as reading all the bcdedit
command line options.
The purpose of rebuilding the BCD, is so both
Windows 7 and WinXP will appear in the Windows 7
boot manager. This can be done with bcdedit (painfully),
with bootrec (risky???), or with EasyBCD (price ?).
HTH,
Paul
