Dual boot repair when Vista is primary

[Guest]

I had an installation of Windows XP 64 on a primary partition and XP Home on
a logical partition of the same drive. Since I didn't use XP 64 much due to
lack of drivers and 64 bit native apps I decided it would be a good place to
try out Vista.

So I wiped the x64 partition and reformated then installed Vista to the
primary boot paritition while leaving XP Home on the logical parition.

However, now I cannot get XP Home to boot. Any ideas on how to repair this?

 

[John Barnes]

Download and install VistaBootPro. http://www.vistabootpro.org/ Add a
legacy drive boot entry. You are then going to have to find a way to
restore your XP boot files. You can find ntldr and ntdetect.com on the XP
install CD (either x64 or home) if you have it otherwise find a friend with
XP and copy the two files mentioned and the boot.ini file. You will need
to copy them to the root of the drive you have pointed to with your legacy
boot entry, or just install them on both drives. Edit the boot.ini to point
to the proper partition.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

How are you currently trying to boot XP Home and what, if any, error
messages are you encountering? If the process starts and then halts, where
is it stopping?

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[John Barnes]

Since he only has one primary partition which he formatted he has deleted
all his XP boot files. Know an easy place to find a boot.ini?

 

[Rick Rogers]

Bootcfg /rebuild

But, I try not to assume anything as he may very well have the XP boot files
on the Home volume (posters often get confused about what they have and
where on the system it is located, as well as the difference between boot
and system volumes). It may be that Vista's bootloader is passing to XP, but
that ntldr is not being found or is corrupted, or perhaps ntdetect.com.
That's why I ask what they are actually encountering. Boot.ini is used after
those files, and even if it's the problem then ntldr should default and
still load XP.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[John Barnes]

I have never tried to use bootcfg to build one from scratch just to rebuild
one that already exists. Anyway the boot files have to be on a primary
drive and he said he has xp on a logical drive so they couldnt be there.

 

[Guest]

After installing Vista I didn't get any boot menu. So I tried installing the
VistaBoot 3.1 application which I then added a Windows XP Home option pointed
to the d: logical partition. However when selecting the Windows XP Home
option it will report that ntldr can't be found or is invalid or something
similar.

 

[Guest]

To be more specific on the error message after trying to load the Windows XP
Home option:


---------------------------------------------
Windows Boot Manager
---------------------------------------------

Windows has failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be
the cause. To fix the problem:

1. Insert your Windows installation disc and restart the computer.
2. Choose your language settings and then click "Next"
3. Click "Repair your computer"

If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer
manufacturer for assistance.

Files: \ntldr

Status: 0xc000000f

Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is
missing or corrupt.

 

[Rick Rogers]

I'd beg to differ, as I have several XP systems with the boot files on
logical volumes.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi,

Boot into Vista, insert your WinXP CD and hold the <shift> key down
temporarily to bypass the autorun. Then copy ntldr and ntdetect.com from the
I386 folder on the disk to the root of the volume that holds WinXP. Then
remove the disk and restart the system. If you've installed a service pack
under WinXP, instead of the CD, check the C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles\I386
folder for these files and copy them to the root instead.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org

 

[John Barnes]

Feel free. The mbr checks for the active partition then the active
partition has the boot partition which points to the boot loader, in this
case ntldr, which calls the boot.ini and passes control to the partition
with the system files hal.dll and ntoskrnl.exe on it that has been selected
from the boot menu.
You may be talking about Vista boot pointing to an ntldr directly. That I
would allow as possible as I don't have any idea how Vista boot works. XP I
know requires that the boot files be on an active partition which excludes
logical drives.

 

[Rick Rogers]

Hi John,

Yes, that's precisely what I am referring to as Vista's bootloader on the
primary, active partition is what the mbr is pointing to. Once the
bootloader is chosen, it can (and does) redirect to ntldr when XP is
selected as the booted OS ("previous version of windows"). Ntldr and the
rest of the XP OS files can be on any volume, it doesn't need to be the
primary or the active partition at this point as it's not the master boot
program that is pointing to it. You can do the same thing with GRUB/LILO and
many other third party boot managers as well.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org