Master Boot Record

[Guest]

I have a dual boot system with two hard drives. One has Windows XP installed,
which came preinstalled, the other I added and installed Windows Vista. I
wish to make the second hard drive the boot drive which is a simple process
but for the master boot record. Is there any way I can remove the MBR from
one drive and move, install, edit or copy it to the other.

Thank you.

 

[John Barnes]

Change the boot priority so the second drive is first, then run the Startup
repair on the Vista DVD. You may have to run this more than once. This is
applicable to 2 IDE or SATA drives. On some MOBO"S you will need to
disconnect a drive for it to succeed.

 

[Paul Randall]

I would take John's advice, but if you are set on changing the MBR, I have
used the Dos version of MBRWiz, available for download here:
http://mbr.bigr.net/MBRWiz.zip
Tools like this can get you into trouble

-Paul Randall

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

I have a dual boot system with two hard drives. One has Windows XP
installed,
which came preinstalled, the other I added and installed Windows Vista. I
wish to make the second hard drive the boot drive which is a simple
process
but for the master boot record. Is there any way I can remove the MBR from
one drive and move, install, edit or copy it to the other.

The Vista MBR is different, and so is the whole bootmanager. Don't do this.
Google Vista MBR and you will see.

An easy way to edit the boot settings in Vista is to use VistaBootPRO.

Some people say that there is a problem with dual booting Vista and XP,
where XP wipes out Vista's System Restore and Volume Shadow Copy
information. There is most likely more information on that at the
VistaBootPRO forums.

ss.

 

[Guest]

Thanky you for the advice. I tried this several times. The result was always
the same. When I changed boot priority I got an error message tekking me that
the OS was missing. I also tried VistaBootPro but all that I was able to do
was to boot directly to XP and miss out the dual boot option.

 

[John Barnes]

When you change the boot priority, you boot from the DVD to run startup
repair. VistaBootPro won't work unless you are booting from the BCD.

 

[Guest]

Thank you again. I have done exactly as you suggested. The message actually
reads "Error Loading OS". I have two SATA HDD. Would it make any diffrence if
I physically connected the Vista drive as the first drive as I suspect I may
need a new code if I reinstall Vista again because of this change.

 

[Guest]

Thank you for your advice. I am reluctant to resort to DOS only because any
mistakes are not easy to undo. I will give this a try if all else fails. If
i'm offline for any length of time then I'm reinstalling both operating
systems and programs.

 

[John Barnes]

Just to make this clear. You have the DVD drive as first in boot priority,
then you change the boot priority for the HD's. When you get the message
'to boot from the CD press any key' you press a key and you get the message
'error loading OS' ?

 

[Guest]

No not quite. I changed the boot priority from the XP HDD to Vista HDD. I
then changed the boot sequence so that the computer boots from the DVD. Vista
setup starts correctly. I then ran the boot repair option from Vista setup
and although the program tells me everything is okay when I restart the
computer I come up with the error message. My only option is to change back
to XP HDD as the boot disk. I repeated this process several times as
suggested. I have also run VistaBootPro from Vista as another option with the
same results. The DOS option is looking more attractive.

 

[John Barnes]

The MBR basically just finds the active partition on the drive and reads the
boot sector. If you are going to replace the MBR, why don't you use your
Vista install DVD and in Recovery Environment run the command fixmbr
Remember to make the Vista drive your first in boot priority first.
I would first check your drives and make sure you have an active primary
partition. If you set up Vista on a logical drive you won't be able to boot
it from the MBR on the second drive unless you add a primary partition and
install the boot files there.

 

[John Barnes]

Just a reminder, you will need to have the Vista Boot files on the drive you
are making your primary drive.

 

[64-bit Newbie]

Dear Mr. Barnes-

Just did a quick keyword search "Error Loading OS" and came across this
article. I have a similar problem. I have XP SP2 on one partition, then I
installed Vista Premium 64-bit. Both run fine, except if I don't have the
Vista DVD in, I get the error "Error loading OS". If I have the Vista DVD
in, I get the "press any key to boot off CD/DVD". When I don't press
anything, I get the option to run XP or Vista. But, only when the DVD is
present. I'm at work right now, but when I get home, I'll try running the
fixmbr off the Vista disc in hopes that it works and gets rid of the "error
loading OS" stuff.

 

[Andy]

When the DVD is in the optical drive, it causes the computer to boot
from the other (than the one the bios is currently set to) physical
hard disk drive. Set your bios to boot from that drive.

On Mon, 14 Jan 2008 11:36:00 -0800, 64-bit Newbie <64-bit