Says "Boot manager compressed." Now I can't boot into my system.

[ROLe]

I created a mess here and I hope someone can help me sort through it. I got
vista ultimate and I wanted to set it up on my computer along with XP Pro.
The Os's would be on separate hard drives. What I did was clear out an
existing hard drive and cleared out the partition so it was an unpartitioned
space. I shut down the computer with the boot disc in it, restarted and it
seemed to install fine. I selected the unpartitioned space the installations
went through all the motions and what seemed like its last reboot it starts
to install all over again. I have also had errors like "boot manager is
compressed. I disabled the drive that vista was installed on so I can get
back into my XP program and I get the "boot manager is compressed" message
also. I have a hyperthreading 3.4 ghz processer 3 gig of ram. I had heard
that anything more than 2 gig screws up the Vista install, however this one
seemed like it went all the way through untill it started reinstalling of
course. Also when it reboots a page comes up very quickly asking me if I want
windows XP or Vista. However it flys by so quick it's hard to react and even
if I could what F key do I hit? Any suggestions?

 

[Andrew E.]

You must have installed the OS with 2 hd still running,you need to physically
unplug one & install to other till the installation is thru.From here,i'd
reinstall
the OS,boot to cd,install,delete partition(s),create one,then let it
install &
format auto.

 

[John John - MVP]

Boot to the Recovery Console and issue the following command:

attrib -c c:\bootmgr.exe

John