How do I get that multi/dual booting option

[Guest]

Hi,

I've a 80GB HDD with 5 partitions (C,D,E,F and G) on it. I've my lovely Win
XP Pro. is installed in F drive and D drive contains some Imp. files on it.
Later I've installed Vista 32 Bit on drive C. It was installed properly and
I'm happy with the installation procedure. The other drives are still empty.
Now that I do not have any unallocated partitions on my disk and have two
different OS's installed on it, I'm unable to start over with the XP again.
After installing Vista, it became the only bootable OS and there is no screen
show of multi/dual boot selection coming up on my screen. I've thoroughly
checked the strat and recovery setting on Vista and it is only showing the
default OS as itself. There is no other OS to select ! I really don't know
what has happened. What to do to get back my lovely XP Pro., which has
several good third party software installed on to it. How do I get that
multi/dual booting option to work out? Need some suggestions?

Thanking you in advance.

SK.

 

[Chad Harris]

Use

VistaBoot Pro. http://www.pro-networks.org/vistabootpro/intro.php



CH

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Absolutely!

 

[Guest]

I did that down load and tried it.

Ok. Worked well in creating a bootup screen with the other drive as second
option.

But, I was unable to loging to XP which was installed on the booted drive.

Any help? Please go on...


SK

 

[Chad Harris]

I think you mean rather you can't boot to XP rather than that you can boot
to an XP login screen, and it won't login.

Booting to XP would depend on the mbr pointing to the XP bootloader, ntldr
for Win XP as has been said many times here. If you cannot fix it with
VisBootPro, I assume you are not able to boot into XP right now. You could
try a repair install on the XP boot.

I would've offered F8 options but if you can boot into XP I think any of
those F8 options on your box right now would only apply themselves to Vista
and wouldn't help you with the XP boot, i.e. the 4 places you could access
System Restore, and Last Known Good Configuration.

But you might try a repair install because there you are really doing an
Uber Windows File Protection by booting from the XP CD. That requires a big
IF and my biggest gripe with MSFT and that is if you have an XP CD because
odds are you did an OEM purchase and they universally although there are
exceptions excluded sending people an XP CD.

If you do have an XP CD, try a repair install this way:

This means that you enter bios setup by whatever key or keys
(sometimes there is more than one key that will do it for your model--go to
pc manufacturer site) and configure CD to be first in the boot order.

See for ref:
Access/Enter Motherboard BIOS
http://www.michaelstevenstech.com/bios_manufacturer.htm

Repair Install Win XP
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/using/helpandsupport/learnmore/tips/doug92.mspx

CH

 

[CZ]

Booting to XP would depend on the mbr pointing to the XP bootloader,
Chad:

My understanding of the native MS dual boot process:
The MBR queries the partition table for the active primary partition, and
passes control to the bootcode of that partition.
In a Vista setup the active primary partition bootcode has been modify to
call the Vista bootmgr.
If you select the previous op sys line from the Vista bootmgr menu, then
control is passed to ntldr, which loads the normal XP boot.ini file.

 

[Chad Harris]

Sounds right, clearer and more detail than I provided as to a dual boot with
Vista. I do wonder, though, if my idea to try a Repair Install with the XP
CD would help here.

CH