Vista Multiboot, Part II

[Jeff V. Pulver]

Dear All:

I just encountered a new wrinkle to my multiboot problem, so I started a new
thread, as most of the other previous suggestions did not help.

I started with the following system, with Windows XP on the C: drive.

Drive 0: IDE, Partition 1, C:, Windows XP
Partition 2, F:, Storage
Drive 1: SATA, Partition 1, D:, Storage
Drive 2: SATA, Partition 1, E:, Storage

Following the guidelines, I booted from the Vista DVD and performed a clean
install of Vista in Drive 0, Partition 2. When I booted Vista, Drive 0
Partition 1 was the F: drive and Drive 0 Partition 2 was the C: drive. I
believe that is how it should work.

When I boot the system, Vista Boot Manager asks me which OS I want. If I
select the WXP system, it is supposed to make that drive the C: drive and
the Vista partition the F: drive. Instead, WXP does not boot as there is a
problem finding the ntldr file.

Now comes the strange part. I was troubleshooting a different hardware
problem and I disconnected both SATA drives (Drive 1 and 2).

When I booted the system, there was no Vista Boot Manager asking me which OS
to boot into. Instead, my WXP system started right up. I verified it
worked, and when I looked at the drives, the F: drive still contained the
Vista OS.

I then reconnected those drives and rebooted, and then Vista's Boot Manager
took control, and WXP does not start. Vista works fine..

So now I have two questions: 1) Why cannot I boot into WXP (which I just
demonstrated is still there)? and 2) Why did I lose Vista when the two
drives were disconnected?

Thank you.

Cheers,

Jeff V. Pulver

 

[CZ]

Now comes the strange part. I was troubleshooting a different hardware
problem and I disconnected both SATA drives (Drive 1 and 2).

When I booted the system, there was no Vista Boot Manager asking me which OS
to boot into. Instead, my WXP system started right up. I verified it
worked, and when I looked at the drives, the F: drive still contained the
Vista OS.

I then reconnected those drives and rebooted, and then Vista's Boot Manager
took control, and WXP does not start. Vista works fine.

Jeff:

Because your first SATA drive is the boot drive.

Did you do what my other post suggested?

My other post:

Jeff:

Copy the ntldr and boot.ini files to the root of D:
Also, do you see a "boot" folder in the root of D: ?


Theory:
The "ntldr is missing" error message tells us that boot process control has
been passed to a vol that knows to load the ntldr file (which it cannot
find).
If the above works, then you are booting from disk 01 which is your first
SATA drive and not disk 00 which is your IDE drive.


Your previous postrive 1: Partition 1, D:
Drive 2: Partition 1, E:
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=D:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
displayorder {current}
{ntldr}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {610e6eb1-c128-11db-86bc-91f2d356bda0}
nx OptIn

Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {ntldr}
device partition=F:
path \ntldr
description Earlier Version of Windows


boot.ini
[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP
Professional" /fastdetect /NoExecute=OptIn