Vista multiboot help needed BADLY

[Guest]

I just installed Vista on 10-11-06. Just downloaded it a few days ago. It is
the 64-bit version of Vista. I burned the ISO to a DVD and booted from that
DVD and installed from there.

I have a SATA HD with 4 partitions on it: A C: drive (where Vista is newly
installed), a G: drive (where XP Pro has been installed for a long time), an
H: drive (where XP Home has been installed for a long time), and an X: drive
which contains all my files, etc. Previously I had another copy of XP Pro on
the C: drive, but I formatted the partition and then did a clean install of
Vista.

Now I can only boot to Vista. When I try to set the default OS to boot to in
the Advanced System Startup window there are no OS's listed except Vista. XP
Home and XP Pro seemingly don't exit. However, they are there nice as can be
on their appropriate drives. So they are there, they just aren't being seen.
Vista has hijacked my machine from me!!!

HOW DO I GET MY MACHINE TO GO BACK TO A MULTIBOOT SYSTEM where I can choose
at startup which OS to use? I regret installing Vista since I can now not use
any of my programs and therefore can accomplish nothing with my computer at
all!

I am quite fine with deleting Vista and reformatting the partition it is on.
However, from what little I've gleaned online I am not sure this would even
help. Just get me back to a usable machine! Take me back to before I
installed this hellish Vista terrorist OS! My God, what a freaking travesty.

Thanks for any help.

Rob

 

[Guest]

Try using vista as your os, get all your apps off the windows partitions (tho
windows xp wtf!). windows vista works! try it. as far as your boatloader goes
i dont know

 

[Guest]

" I have a SATA HD with 4 partitions on it: A C: drive (where Vista is newly

look i understand from this parograph the following:

you have ONE HDD (physical, like you can touch and feel); it was separated
into FOUR (logical) drives, A,C,G,X. then you FORMATTED C: which contained XP
pro.

unless what i wrote and understood was incorrect, you deleted XP when you
formatted C:
when you format C: which is the system drive in windows, that IS your HDD,
the whole thing including the logical drives. sorry dude, i hope you enjoy
Vista!

 

[Mark D. VandenBerg]

There are two freeware programs to help you with editing the boot files of
Vista so that it includes options to boot any other legacy systems. Use
your favorite search engine and look for VistaBootPro or EasyBCD. Both come
recommended.

Good Luck!

 

[Guest]

The reason you haven't got multi-boot is probably because you booted to the
Vista DVD instead of running its installation from 1 of your existing
operating systems. I assume that Alejo (above) didn't notice that you said
you formatted C PARTITION (note drive). Get VistaBootPro from
vistabootpro.org, install it in Vista then run it. That should get you to a
triple boot situation - Vista; Xp Pro and XP Home. If you get any messages
like 'ntldr is missing' believe it and replace the missing files. Finally
give your partitions names as Vista may change the letters and confuse you.
Colin