2003 Server and XP Pro Dual Boot Problem

[Guest]

I have been running 2003 Server for about a year now without issue. I
acquired some new software that would not install on 2003, so I installed XP
Pro for multiboot so that I could run the new software. I put XP on a
secondary hard drive (2003 is in c: (physical drive 0), XP is d: (physical
drive 1)).

XP boots fine.

When I choose 2003 to boot, it fails. I tried to start up under safe mode,
debug mode, etc. Watching the output during safemode boot, I see it
attempting to load a bunch of drivers, then the machine spontaneously reboots
and it comes back to the multiboot selection screen. No error messages are
displayed, it just reboots before it makes it to the 2003 splash screen.

Any idea how I can begin to diagnose this problem????

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

I have been running 2003 Server for about a year now without issue. I
acquired some new software that would not install on 2003, so I installed XP
Pro for multiboot so that I could run the new software. I put XP on a
secondary hard drive (2003 is in c: (physical drive 0), XP is d: (physical
drive 1)).

XP boots fine.

When I choose 2003 to boot, it fails. I tried to start up under safe mode,
debug mode, etc. Watching the output during safemode boot, I see it
attempting to load a bunch of drivers, then the machine spontaneously reboots
and it comes back to the multiboot selection screen. No error messages are
displayed, it just reboots before it makes it to the 2003 splash screen.

Any idea how I can begin to diagnose this problem????

It might have been better to use a third-party boot manager
in order to complete separate the two OSs. XOSL is one
that I recommend. It's free, and it allows you to selectively
hide any partition so that you either see Win2003 or WinXP
both on drive C:, but never both at the same time.

To debug your current problem I would try this:
1. Save the hidden files c:\ntldr, c:\ntdetect.com and c:\boot.ini
to a suitable subfolder.
2. Replace the hidden files c:\ntldr and c:\ntdetect.com from
the i386 folder of your Win2003 CD.
3. Disconnect the second disk.
4. Boot into Win2003.

If this fails, then I would boot into Win2003, using the "Last
known good configuration".

 

[Admiral Q]

You need to boot to the recovery console on the Win2k3 CD and recover the
boot files. In the future, you should install XP first, followed by Win2k3,
as you install OS's in the order in which they were released, from oldest to
newest.