Missing dual boot Vista & XP

[Bobzy]

Hi.

I have a box where two XP installations were running fine on each
their partition. I then wanted to change one of the XP installations
to Vista. When making a clean install things went fine. However, I
never had (or overlooked???) an option to dual boot so now I only have
the Vista install although the other partition is still untouched. So
I need let the new Vista bootloader know to dual boot and give me the
option of starting the old XP. The old boot.ini was deleted in the
process of installing Vista so I don't know the parameters for multi/
rdisk/disk/partition.

Can someone help please.

 

[Carey Frisch [MVP]]

Try using this excellent utility:

VistaBootPRO
http://www.vistabootpro.org/

--
Carey Frisch
Microsoft MVP
Windows Shell/User

----------------------------------------------------------------------

:

Hi.

I have a box where two XP installations were running fine on each
their partition. I then wanted to change one of the XP installations
to Vista. When making a clean install things went fine. However, I
never had (or overlooked???) an option to dual boot so now I only have
the Vista install although the other partition is still untouched. So
I need let the new Vista bootloader know to dual boot and give me the
option of starting the old XP. The old boot.ini was deleted in the
process of installing Vista so I don't know the parameters for multi/
rdisk/disk/partition.

Can someone help please.

 

[Bobzy]

Thanks for your quick reply. I already tried VistaBootPRO 3.3 but it
didn't solve the problem. Very likely I am not using it correctly so
here is dumb when I press "View Settings":

There is currently 2 OS(s) installed on your system.
The current boot timeout is: 30

Default OS: Microsoft Windows Vista

Entry 1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Microsoft Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Boot Drive: C:
Windows Drive: C:
System Bootloader: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry 2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {f1006f2f-4ee8-11dc-a1d6-0013d4991b0f}
Boot Drive: D:
System Bootloader: \ntldr

I added a legacy OS entry. The machine crashed. I then tried to copy
NTDETECT.COM, ntldr and boot.ini to D: but still no joy. (The 3 files
are now present both on C: and D It was then I decided to seek help
in this forum.

Any ideas?

 

[Yukon Jack]

Thanks for your quick reply. I already tried VistaBootPRO 3.3 but it
didn't solve the problem.

Too late now but the best way to set up XP/Vista dual boot is to install
each OS onto separate HDD's. Disconnect the other HDD as you install each OS
onto its HDD and then connect both HDD's after both OS's are installed. Now
use the mb's boot menu to choose which OS you want to boot. All modern mb's
provide this function. On my last mb you press F11 during boot up to get the
boot menu and on my current mb it is F8. This keeps each OS intact from each
other (if one goes south the other is till fully functional) and you won't
have to deal with the issue like you are now with the Vista boot menu. This
is how I have been doing dual boot for quite some time now and it's great.
But you do need at least two HDD's to be able to do it. If you had 4 HDD's
installed you could have 4 OS's running in multi-boot if you wanted.
Whatever HDD you set to first boot device in the mb boot selection menu
becomes your default boot OS so you only need to press the function key to
boot from any device when you want to boot to another OS besides the one on
the first boot device. If you have two HDD's then I suggest you start from
scratch and do it as I have outlined above.

 

[John Barnes]

Check your boot.ini to make sure that you have the entry pointing to the
proper rdisk and partition.

 

[Bobzy]

Check your boot.ini to make sure that you have the entry pointing to the
proper rdisk and partition.

Thanks for your comments. What tool reveals rdisk and partition? So
far I have been guessing. I have concluded not to be good at guessing.

 

[John Barnes]

Open the boot.ini file with notepad. Look at the entry, particularly in the
default position and see if it matches where XP is. rdisk is numbered 0,1,2
etc and partitions 1,2,3 etc.
I'm not on my dual boot computer now, so I can't copy a line here, but
partition is pretty easy as you can look in disk management and see which
partition it is on, the rdisk usually corresponds with that in disk
management. Don't know if you have more than one drive, anyway.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Check your boot.ini to make sure that you have the entry pointing to the
proper rdisk and partition.

Does the Vista boot manager use boot.ini when booting XP?
It's likely that only ntldr (the NT/2K/XP) boot manager/loader
uses boot.ini .

*TimDaniels*

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Open the boot.ini file with notepad. Look at the entry, particularly
in the default position and see if it matches where XP is. rdisk is
numbered 0,1,2 etc and partitions 1,2,3 etc. I'm not on my dual
boot computer now, so I can't copy a line here, but partition is
pretty easy as you can look in disk management and see which partition it is
on, the rdisk usually corresponds with that in disk management. Don't know if
you have more than one drive, anyway.

"rdisk(x)" corresponds to the Hard Drive Boot Order in the BIOS.
This may be called by various names in different BIOSes, but it
is the boot priority for the HDs (and *just* the HDs). The *default*
HD Boot Order for PATA HDs is:
Master, IDE ch. 0,
Slave, IDE ch. 0.
Master, IDE ch. 1,
Slave, IDE ch. 1.

In such a boot order, the HD jumpered as Master on IDE ch. 0
will be "rdisk0)" and it will get control at startup. But that boot
order can be changed manually in the BIOS by the user. And
the HD at the head of the list will be "rdisk(0)", and *that* HD
will get control.

In the HD location paths in the boot.ini file, "rdisk(1)" refers to
the HD next in the HD Boot Priority, and "rdisk(2)" refers to the
next HD in the HD Boot Priority, etc.

The numbering for SATA drives follows the no. of the SATA
port to which the SATA HD is connected. For motherboards
which have both PATA and SATA HD controllers, usually one
numbering system follows the other.

To avoid further futzing around by the Original Poster (unless he
has time for experimentation), I suggest that he simply re-install
Vista while keeping the XP installation visible to the Vista installer,
and the Vista installer will set up the dual-boot parameters
automatically.

*TimDaniels*

 

[John Barnes]

Look at his entry - system bootloader ntldr
I have both xp64 and xp86 on one of my Vista systems and I assure you that
the boot screen presented to me each time I select legacy os is from the
boot.ini.
The boot.ini would not be required if the os to be loaded is on the same
partition as the ntldr and the boot selection screen isn't presented if only
1 entry exists.

Entry 2

 

[John Barnes]

Whether he wants to change 1 or 2 numbers in the boot.ini or reinstall the
system is up to him.

 

[Timothy Daniels]

Your comments are interesting, and I'm trying to understand them.
The drift I get is that Vista employs ntldr (and thus boot.ini and
perhaps ntdetect.com) to boot XP. That is plausible and it would
conveniently re-use the WinNT/2K/XP boot processes for booting
those OSes. But what is "xp86" that you mention?

You are correct that ntldr wouldn't present an on-screen boot menu
if there were only one entry under "[operating systems]" in the boot.ini
file. But boot.ini is required as a pointer to the OS for ntldr, even if
the the OS resides on the same partition as ntldr. Ntldr really doesn't
care *which* partition in the system contains the OS - it will even
boot a Windows NT/2K/XP OS from an Extended partition (I've
tried it). But it must point to it for ntldr to work, and it doesn't care
whether the partition is its own or another one. All that is required is
that ntldr and boot.ini and ntdetect.com reside under the root of the
Primary partition that is marked "active" on the HD designated by the
BIOS.

*TimDaniels*

 

[John Barnes]

Vista bootloader passes control to the ntldr if a legacy system using it is
selected. Windows98 has another process that is best accessed thru the
ntldr. XP86 is just another way of referring to the 32-bit version.

Your comments are interesting, and I'm trying to understand them.
The drift I get is that Vista employs ntldr (and thus boot.ini and
perhaps ntdetect.com) to boot XP. That is plausible and it would
conveniently re-use the WinNT/2K/XP boot processes for booting
those OSes. But what is "xp86" that you mention?

You are correct that ntldr wouldn't present an on-screen boot menu
if there were only one entry under "[operating systems]" in the boot.ini
file. But boot.ini is required as a pointer to the OS for ntldr, even if
the the OS resides on the same partition as ntldr. Ntldr really doesn't
care *which* partition in the system contains the OS - it will even
boot a Windows NT/2K/XP OS from an Extended partition (I've
tried it). But it must point to it for ntldr to work, and it doesn't care
whether the partition is its own or another one. All that is required is
that ntldr and boot.ini and ntdetect.com reside under the root of the
Primary partition that is marked "active" on the HD designated by the
BIOS.

*TimDaniels*

Look at his entry - system bootloader ntldr
I have both xp64 and xp86 on one of my Vista systems and I assure
you that the boot screen presented to me each time I select legacy os
is from the boot.ini.
The boot.ini would not be required if the os to be loaded is on the same
partition as the ntldr and the boot selection screen isn't presented if
only 1 entry exists.

Entry 2
-----------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {f1006f2f-4ee8-11dc-a1d6-0013d4991b0f}
Boot Drive: D:
System Bootloader: \ntldr