XP install clobered Vista

A

Aaron Gray

Installing XP on a second hard drive has clobbered Vista on the primary
drive.

I do not have my Vista DVD with me and am wondering the easiest way to
recover Vista ?

I obviously have a XP CD with me, and am hoping that I can get away with out
having to redownload a Vista ISO from MSDN Subscriptions.

Any help welcomed,

Aaron
 
M

Mike Brannigan

Aaron Gray said:
Installing XP on a second hard drive has clobbered Vista on the primary
drive.

I do not have my Vista DVD with me and am wondering the easiest way to
recover Vista ?

I obviously have a XP CD with me, and am hoping that I can get away with
out having to redownload a Vista ISO from MSDN Subscriptions.

Any help welcomed,

Aaron
Click to expand...

You always install the oldest OS first to the newest.
The recovery process will require your Vista DVD to replace you now
"clobbered" boot loader etc.
 
R

R. C. White

Hi, Aaron.

You violated the Golden Rule of dual booting: Always install the newest
operating system last. :>( The latest system's Setup file knows how to
handle all the earlier ones. But WinXP's Setup has no idea what to do with
Vista.

If you had the Vista DVD, recovery would be pretty easy. Without it, it's
still easy IF you have Vista's bootsect.exe file on your hard drive. WinXP
will run this Vista program, but the file is not copied from the DVD's \boot
folder to your hard drive by default. You must either run bootsect.exe from
the DVD, or copy it to your hard drive and run it from there. If you don't
have bootsect.exe, try here:
http://www.vistabootpro.org/

See this KB article:
Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the
Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

Unless you've overwritten it, you still have Vista's hidden \Boot folder on
your system partition.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Running Windows Live Mail beta 2 in Vista Ultimate x64)
 
A

andy

Installing XP on a second hard drive has clobbered Vista on the primary
drive.

I do not have my Vista DVD with me and am wondering the easiest way to
recover Vista ?

I obviously have a XP CD with me, and am hoping that I can get away with out
having to redownload a Vista ISO from MSDN Subscriptions.

Any help welcomed,

Aaron
Click to expand...
Try using VistaBootPro <http://www.vistabootpro.org/>.
 
A

Aaron Gray

You always install the oldest OS first to the newest.
Click to expand...

Sounds like good practice, but the reality is different :)
The recovery process will require your Vista DVD to replace you now
"clobbered" boot loader etc.
Click to expand...

Okay I have the Vista DVD after all, phew, and the Vista C: partition looks
fine from XP. How do I now reinstall the boot loader ?

Many thanks in advance,

Aaron
 
S

Schrodinger's cat

Aaron Gray said:
Sounds like good practice, but the reality is different :)


Okay I have the Vista DVD after all, phew, and the Vista C: partition
looks fine from XP. How do I now reinstall the boot loader ?

Many thanks in advance,

Aaron
Click to expand...

Stick the Vista DVD in and boot up using it. There is an option to repair
it, which fixes the mbr. I did it myself last week.

HTH

Martin
 
A

Aaron Gray

Schrodinger's cat said:
Stick the Vista DVD in and boot up using it. There is an option to repair
it, which fixes the mbr. I did it myself last week.
Click to expand...

Okay I have tried that and its not worked.

Its still saying "Error loading operating system" :(

Aaron
 
A

Aaron Gray

R. C. White said:
Hi, Aaron.

You violated the Golden Rule of dual booting: Always install the newest
operating system last. :>( The latest system's Setup file knows how to
handle all the earlier ones. But WinXP's Setup has no idea what to do
with Vista.

If you had the Vista DVD, recovery would be pretty easy. Without it, it's
still easy IF you have Vista's bootsect.exe file on your hard drive.
WinXP will run this Vista program, but the file is not copied from the
DVD's \boot folder to your hard drive by default. You must either run
bootsect.exe from the DVD, or copy it to your hard drive and run it from
there. If you don't have bootsect.exe, try here:
http://www.vistabootpro.org/

See this KB article:
Windows Vista no longer starts after you install an earlier version of the
Windows operating system in a dual-boot configuration
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

Unless you've overwritten it, you still have Vista's hidden \Boot folder
on your system partition.
Click to expand...

Hi,

I ran the automated recovery on the DVD, which I now have by some miracle,
but that did not work.

I ran 'bootsect.exe /nt60 C:' but that did not work either.

On attempt to boot it just says :-

'Error loading operating system'

which as far as I can remember from DOS days is a BIOS message.

Sorry I did not reply directly earlier, I was sidetracked as normal.

Aaron
 
A

AJR

Tons of advice - all that is necessary is reinstall Vista from withn XP
(period),

BTW "...Sounds like good practice, but the reality is different :)..." - no
it is reality!!!
 
A

Aaron Gray

AJR said:
Tons of advice - all that is necessary is reinstall Vista from withn XP
(period),

BTW "...Sounds like good practice, but the reality is different :)..." -
no it is reality!!!
Click to expand...

I had Vista installed, I wanted XP installed, on a separate hard drive, as
Vista does not play nicely with MinGW32, so I wanted both.

Vista was already installed, I wanted XP too. I still want my existing Vista
installation, as otherwise I have alot of applications to reinstall.

If I had unplugged my Vista drive before installing XP then replugged it
back in after wards everything would have been fine. Then I could just
choose which OS I want to boot from BIOS.

Thats the reality of the situation. You maybe right in that I may have to
reinstall Vista, but it would be great if that was not so and some solution.

Cheers,

Aaron
 
A

AJR

I cannot address "unplugging the Vista drive..." since I have no expereince
in that route - both drives, to boot from BIOS, would have to be designated
active.

As you probaly know, XP uses Boot.ini as a DOS boot manager while Vista use
BCD Store via WinPE. For duial booting - XP is (Oldest OS) is installed
first - Vista is installed via XP and place files associated with its boot
manager on the XP partition and modifires boot.ini to provide the OS boot
option.

Usually a third party utility such as VistaBootPro provides a solution.
Another option may be BCDedit.exe. Microsoft's command line utility to
modify BCD Store. Check the follofwing site:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...-427c-b035-c2719d4af7781033.mspx#BKMK_bcdedit
 
G

Guest

Aaron Gray said:
Vista was already installed, I wanted XP too. I still want my existing Vista
installation, as otherwise I have alot of applications to reinstall.
Click to expand...

So re installing Vista deletes your APPs.
Oh my, I'll stick to my lovely intelligent MacOS.
 
P

Pirate chaser

Aaron Gray said:
Installing XP on a second hard drive has clobbered Vista on the primary
drive.
Click to expand...
From what I read you should be happy.

Quite a something that one version of Windows destroys another.
 
K

Kenn

This may be what you are looking for to help load both XP and Vista.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/diskdirector/multibooting.html

Boot from an additional hard disk drive. Acronis® OS Selector enables you to
set the disk order so you can boot from any hard drive you select.

Insert a bootable CD/DVD and it will automatically be detected and displayed
as a multiboot option by Acronis® OS Selector.

Detect multiple operating systems that became unbootable due to some
accidental reasons with Acronis® OS Selector detection tool.

Support up to 100 of any known operating systems including Windows XP and
Linux on a single PC.
Install several versions of Windows on a single partition. Operating systems
with the same folder names (e.g. C:\Program Files) on one partition are
supported.

Install and boot an operating system from any partition of any hard disk.

Protect multi-boot OSes and setup with a password.

Hide operating systems and partitions.

Clone OS installation as a back-up.

Repartition your system for a new OS installation.

Boot viruses protection included.
 
P

Pedro

Hi Aaron,

Did you managed to restore your windows?
I'm having the same problem and i have no idea how to fix this...

Thanks

Pedro
 

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