xp and vista dual boot

[GG]

Problem:
My xp boot became corrupted and I always get Vista even I choose XP to boot.
during pc restart with F8 or from bios disk boot order

Details
I had originally installed xp Pro on physical disk 2 primary partition 2
and bios set to boot from this disk.
disk 0 was an data drive ( once upon a time was the system drive of prior
OS)
disk 1 is just an Sata drive added sometime after after installation. also
added another data sata drive later and that became disk 3 in compmgmt.msc

Originally dual boot with xp pro. 64 in disk 2 prmary partition 4

I wiped out the xp pro 64 and installed in its place vista system partition
but the boot drive is on the disk 0.


for quite some time I can switch between XP and vista by selecting to boot
from drive 2 or 0 during machine boot up or set from bios.

Need help:
a few days ago, for some reason unknown, the boot for xp became corrupted
and vista always comes up instead.

booting up with xp pro sp2 disk did not help me as I don't have recovery
disk, and the console did not help either. nice if I can can into safe mode
and see if the logical drrves are still in XP order

what can I do?

 

[John John (MVP)]

What happens when you uplug or disable the Vista HD and try to boot on
the XP drive? Do you have a floppy drive in your computer? If yes can
you boot XP with a boot floppy? http://www.nu2.nu/bootdisk/ntboot/ Are
you sure that the XP drive isn't dead? Can you access it when you are
booted to Vista? Have you tried booting XP with the Vista boot loader?
You can use VistaBootPro to help you add the XP installation to the
Vista boot loader.

John

 

[db ´¯`·.. >]

you can always setup
virtual pc in vista

then setup winxp in
virtual pc.

--

db·´¯`·...¸><)))º>
DatabaseBen, Retired Professional
- Systems Analyst
- Database Developer
- Accountancy
- Veteran of the Armed Forces

"share the nirvana" - dbZen

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 

[GG]

the xp drive is definietly live and accessible from vista. the XP folders
and content seems perfectly normal. I think something went awry in the boot
sector or some other corruption - when trying to boot in safemode for XP. it
will go loading a screenful before restarting the PC and back to vista

I already image the xp system drive and vista system drive just in case I
get further corruption

 

[John John (MVP)]

the xp drive is definietly live and accessible from vista. the XP folders
and content seems perfectly normal. I think something went awry in the boot
sector or some other corruption - when trying to boot in safemode for XP. it
will go loading a screenful before restarting the PC and back to vista

A screenful of what? What about the diskette drive, did you give it a
try? What about disconecting all but the XP drive, did you give it a try?

John

 

[GS]

thx

Tried disconnecting all drive but the xp holding drive.

I finally gave up and restore xp system from an earlier image