can't boot into vista anymore

  • Thread starter Thread starter AMDX2
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A

AMDX2

I have 2 hard drives. Vista home premium sp1 64bit was installed on the
first and I just installed windows xp pro on the second drive.

now i can't get into vista anymore even when selecting that hard drive for
the boot drive in my bios. i only can boot into xp.

how do i fix that so i can boot in vista and then boot in xp when i want? my
hope is i want to get in bios and select boot menu then what drive i want or
have that option when i start the pc like from os choice menu that comes up
for some people on their systems when they dual boot.

thanks.
 
It sounds as if you had the first drive (Vista) set to boot Vista when you
installed XP on the second drive. XP then wrote a boot sector, ntldr and
boot.ini on the first drive, to boot XP on the second drive. Result is that
neither drive will boot a standalone operating system. What you are doing
now, is booting from the first drive, which then loads XP from the second
drive. Messy.

While you can configure your hard drives the way you describe, and use the
BIOS to select the operating system, it is not that hard to use the Vista
Boot Manager to accomplish the same thing. A program called bootsect.exe on
the Vista install DVD can be used to restore the Vista Boot Manager to drive
1. Then you can use another one called bcdedit.exe to load ntldr and boot
XP from drive 2. Then you will be booting either Vista or XP from the same
boot time menu. Look for articles about bcdedit and bootsect on TechNet.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

There are third party solutions to automate the process. No doubt someone
will suggest one or more of those. I haven't found it necessary to use one.
Vista Boot Manager is somewhat like XP boot.ini, except that it uses a
database, very mumbo jumbo, and you have to use a program to modify its
parameters. Not a big deal once you read the TechNet articles.

Now if you want you can configure your drive 2 to boot standalone when
selected as the BIOS boot device. This step is not necessary, but (1) make
it the boot device in BIOS setup and (2) run XP setup CD, emergency repair
process, recover console, commands fixboot and fixmbr. Now you can use the
BIOS to select the boot drive, but as I said not the most flexible option.

Cheers,

Earle
 
Earle Horton said:
It sounds as if you had the first drive (Vista) set to boot Vista when you
installed XP on the second drive. XP then wrote a boot sector, ntldr and
boot.ini on the first drive, to boot XP on the second drive. Result is
that neither drive will boot a standalone operating system. What you are
doing now, is booting from the first drive, which then loads XP from the
second drive. Messy.

While you can configure your hard drives the way you describe, and use the
BIOS to select the operating system, it is not that hard to use the Vista
Boot Manager to accomplish the same thing. A program called bootsect.exe
on the Vista install DVD can be used to restore the Vista Boot Manager to
drive 1. Then you can use another one called bcdedit.exe to load ntldr
and boot XP from drive 2. Then you will be booting either Vista or XP
from the same boot time menu. Look for articles about bcdedit and
bootsect on TechNet.

http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/default.aspx

There are third party solutions to automate the process. No doubt someone
will suggest one or more of those. I haven't found it necessary to use
one. Vista Boot Manager is somewhat like XP boot.ini, except that it uses
a database, very mumbo jumbo, and you have to use a program to modify its
parameters. Not a big deal once you read the TechNet articles.

Now if you want you can configure your drive 2 to boot standalone when
selected as the BIOS boot device. This step is not necessary, but (1)
make it the boot device in BIOS setup and (2) run XP setup CD, emergency
repair process, recover console, commands fixboot and fixmbr. Now you can
use the BIOS to select the boot drive, but as I said not the most flexible
option.

Cheers,

Earle
Click to expand...

Thanks guys. I'm looking at the info now and have read some of it already.
I've got a question.

First, Earle Horton, you are correct. That is what happened and how my boot
drive was set.

Second. Do I need to be in vista for any of this? Cus of course I can't boot
into it yet.

What I'd like to do i guess is from in xp clear the boot info for both
drives or whatever and then get the boot info set right in vista. Then i can
restart the pc and have the vista boot menu with vista and xp in it.

Or do I have to boot from the vista cd for a startup repair or whatever?
 
Brink said:
Hi AMDX2,

You can boot from the Vista DVD to run a Startup Repair. It should fix
the boot sector for the installed Vista and allow you to boot into Vista
again with XP still as a dual boot option. This tutorial will show you
how to if needed.

http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/91467-startup-repair.html

Hope this helps,
Shawn




--
Brink

*There are no dumb questions, just the people that do not ask
them.*
'*VISTA FORUMS*' (http://www.vistax64.com)
*Please post feedback to help others.*
Click to expand...

Brink, thanks. I just got done doing this before I read yer post and it
doesn't help. I just get during boot hit f11 for recovery process and then
vista boots. if i don't hit that f11 xp boots. this came to be after i did
something a long time ago today really right after my troubleshooting began.

i have a gateway pc that has vista 64bit home premium restore dvd. it does
give you advance options that have the start up repair etc so fortunatly
it's pretty much the same. doing the startup repair said it found the MBR
was corrupt. it said of course it might reboot a few times if it doesn't
work. Since this is the restore dvd i have to eject it cus it's
automatically running on startup with no choice like a hit key for cd boot
option. anyhow i get hit F11 for recovery process and if i don't hit F11
then xp boots. if I hit F11 vista boots.

This aint right. I still aint got a clue how to fix this correctly without
having to just reinstall/restore the pc using the restore dvd and hope then
it'll see xp and put it in the boot menu.
 
AMDX2 said:
I have 2 hard drives. Vista home premium sp1 64bit was installed on the
first and I just installed windows xp pro on the second drive.

now i can't get into vista anymore even when selecting that hard drive for
the boot drive in my bios. i only can boot into xp.

how do i fix that so i can boot in vista and then boot in xp when i want?
my hope is i want to get in bios and select boot menu then what drive i
want or have that option when i start the pc like from os choice menu that
comes up for some people on their systems when they dual boot.

thanks.
Click to expand...


Ok guys. I'm in vista now and it works. I think what happened is I had to
run the start up repair twice. The first time I posted in here what it did.
It said hit F11 for recovery process and loads vista if i hit F11 and loads
xp if I do nothing. Turns out F11 doesn't do anything. It might be for the
recovery partition on my pc, but it is F8 not F11. It might be for something
else, I have no clue.

Well I re ran the start up repair and tried a few things. I did the start up
repair thing and it said it found the boot something was corrupt, but it was
different then the first time I ran this which was i think corrupt MBR. Well
this was saying something different was corrupt, but still it was boot
something. So i did that and then restarted the pc. This time it did still
say F11 for recovery, but loaded vista even though I did not hit F11. Now i
can't get in xp lol. So I think i fixed part of it, now i need to add XP to
the boot menu whatever, but forget how so i have to re read from your guyses
links or something.

Can someone please tell me how I can 1: get rid of that Hit F11 for recovery
when it never used to be there and doesn't do anything at all?
2: Add xp to the boot so I can say 5 seconds boot into vista by default or i
will use the keyboard to select xp. The order it would look is vista first
then xp under it with say a 5 second delay. i'd also like to change this if
I want, but i don't remember how to do any of this. So i guess I have to re
read stuff you guys pointed me to.

It'd be awesome if you guys could let me know just incase I can't find the
info on how to add xp and be able to change the boot settings like I
described.

Thanks.
Joe
 
AMDX2 said:
I have 2 hard drives. Vista home premium sp1 64bit was installed on the
first and I just installed windows xp pro on the second drive.

now i can't get into vista anymore even when selecting that hard drive for
the boot drive in my bios. i only can boot into xp.

how do i fix that so i can boot in vista and then boot in xp when i want?
my hope is i want to get in bios and select boot menu then what drive i
want or have that option when i start the pc like from os choice menu that
comes up for some people on their systems when they dual boot.

thanks.
Click to expand...

Ok here's an update.
I'm back in xp.
I followed the info from a technet article about using bcdedit and
bootsect.exe. It didn't work, but then it did.
I'll paste in here text from the technet article I read and then give my
results.

1.Use Bootsect.exe to restore the Windows Vista MBR and the boot code that
transfers control to the Windows Boot Manager program. To do this, type the
following command at a command prompt: Drive:\boot\Bootsect.exe /NT60 All

In this command, Drive is the drive where the Windows Vista installation
media is located.

Resulted in it saying that it's not possible. Either by command doesn't
exist or already been done or something similar, but i'm not sure of
anything except this seemed to not do anything.

2.Use Bcdedit.exe to manually create an entry in the BCD Boot.ini file for
the earlier version of the Windows operating system. To do this, type the
following commands at a command prompt.

Note In these commands, Drive is the drive where Windows Vista is installed.
. Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d "Description for
earlier Windows version"

Note In this command, Description for earlier Windows version can be
any text that you want. For example, Description for earlier Windows version
can be "Windows XP" or "Windows Server 2003".

Resulted in entry already exists when I put in Windows XP as the
entry.

. Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=x:

Note In this command, x: is the drive letter for the active partition.
Resulted in complete successfully.
 
Ok here's an update.
I'm back in xp.
I followed the info from a technet article about using bcdedit and
bootsect.exe. It didn't work, but then it did.
I'll paste in here text from the technet article I read and then give my
results.

1.Use Bootsect.exe to restore the Windows Vista MBR and the boot code that
transfers control to the Windows Boot Manager program. To do this, type the
following command at a command prompt: Drive:\boot\Bootsect.exe /NT60 All

In this command, Drive is the drive where the Windows Vista installation
media is located.

Resulted in it saying that it's not possible. Either by command doesn't
exist or already been done or something similar, but i'm not sure of
anything except this seemed to not do anything.
Click to expand...

Try using the following syntax: bootsect /nt60 sys
H:\boot>bootsect /nt60 sys
Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

C: (\\?\Volume{ad0c894a-e806-11dc-8253-806e6f6e6963})

Successfully updated NTFS filesystem bootcode.

Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.

H:\boot>
2.Use Bcdedit.exe to manually create an entry in the BCD Boot.ini file for
the earlier version of the Windows operating system. To do this, type the
following commands at a command prompt.

Note In these commands, Drive is the drive where Windows Vista is installed.
. Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d "Description for
earlier Windows version"

Note In this command, Description for earlier Windows version can be
any text that you want. For example, Description for earlier Windows version
can be "Windows XP" or "Windows Server 2003".

Resulted in entry already exists when I put in Windows XP as the
entry.

. Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=x:

Note In this command, x: is the drive letter for the active partition.
Resulted in complete successfully.
.

Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr
Resulted in complete successfully.
. Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} /addlast
Resulted in complete successfully.

3.Restart the computer.
====================================
I restart pc and still get hit F11 for recovery. Boot menu did load, but
said Earlier version of windows under vista. Did not have Windows XP. Also
it is set for 30 seconds.

So how do I fix this so it says Windows XP?
Click to expand...

Try executing just bcdedit to see what's in the Vista BCD, and post
the contents here.
For example,
C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=H:
default {current}
displayorder {current}
{ntldr}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows Vista (TM) Ultimate
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {71be6e6a-e883-11dc-bf08-806e6f6e6963}

Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {ntldr}
device boot
path \ntldr
description Windows XP

C:\Windows\system32>
 
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