How do I get that multi/dual booting option ?

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G

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.
 
The dual boot scenario as far as Microsoft are concerned is Oldest operating
system (in your case Windows XP) on drive C:, next operating system (Vista)
on drive/partition D, E, or F, depending upon which drive letter your CD/DVD
takes up. This is the way i dual boot and always have done and my system
works without any issue.


--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
John,

Here is the clear Info.

My disk has a total of 5 partitions (C,D,E,F and G).

I've first installed XP on F drive. later Vista on C drive. D drive consists
of some important files and I'm able to access them in Vista too. E and G
drives are empty. The DVD and CD drives are I and H.

After the installation of Vista I'm unable to see the boot selection screen
when the system starts.

I've checked the Control Panel=>system=>advanced system settings=>Startup
and recovery Settings=>Settings=>system startup=>Default OS.

It only showing Vista in the drop down menu.

I've restarted several times and there is no use.

Now that I could not find a second option, what should I do to get logged
into XP again? (or) to see the boot selection screen at time of start up?

Like you mentioned I did not installed the XP on C drive first since the
space it has will not support for Vista. XP was installed on drive F and
after several bootups and upgrades, later, I installed Vista on drive C which
has larger space required for Vista installation using the bootup seqence(CD
ROM) selection drive I (DVD +/- RW) at the time of installation. I've
formatted the entire drive C, and then installed the Vista.

Not to forget I did the installation same manner as I did once earlier when
I used to have an IDE HDD. Then it has shown the boot screen at the startup.
Now I've SATA drive (much spacious) I've followed the same procedure which
failed in showing upi the boot screen.

Should I need to format the drive C so that all data will be lost and my
system will start normally !(I do not think this is gioing happen great for
me even if I do this.). I'm a bit skeptical of losing both the OS's.

What must I do to get back that dual boot screen at start up (or) to log on
to XP ?
 
Download VistaBootPro http://www.vistabootpro.org/ add a legacy OS entry.
For me I have had to copy the ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini files to the
system drive and modify the boot.ini to point to the proper partition.
Given that you use useless drive letters instead of useful partition
numbers, it is hard to give better instructions. Also it is difficult to
see how you installed Vista without it seeing XP. Are you sure you didn't
update XP by mistake? Remember Vista always calls itself C if installed
from the DVD even if it may be on the 2nd, third etc partitions. It is also
important to know which partition is your 'system' partition as that is
where all the boot files need to be.
 
Hi,

You can use VistaBootPro as mentioned by others, and that's probably the
easiest way. You can also use the native tool, bcdedit.exe, at an elevated
command prompt. Click start, type CMD and in the menu above locate the
command. Right click it, choose to run as administrator (you must do this
from this mode). From the prompt, you can follow these instructions from
here:
http://technet2.microsoft.com/Windo...c349-427c-b035-c2719d4af7781033.mspx?mfr=true

<quote>

Create a BCD entry for the older operating system by specifying the
following. Bcdedit.exe is located in the \Windows\System32 directory of the
Windows Vista partition. "Description" is the description of the new entry
for the older operating system.

Bcdedit /create {legacy} /d “Descriptionâ€

Bcdedit /set {legacy} device boot

Bcdedit /set {legacy} path \ntldr

Bcdedit /displayorder {legacy} /addlast

Restart the computer in order for the changes to take effect.

<end>

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
I think, Rick that VistaBootPro is going to be the less complicated route
for the OP. Just looking at the commands for Vista BCDedit is enough to give
you a migraine:-)

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
My post outlined the 'correct' way of dual booting. However, as others have
suggested, the easiest way forward would be to download VistaBootPro and
make alterations to the boot entries. At least VistaBootPro is more user
frientdly than Vista native BCDedit.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
Agreed, though I didn't find it to be that complicated after a bit of usage
(not like my initial introduction to cacls oh so many years ago).

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Actually, Rick, it isn't so much complicated as daunting. The average user
who isn't familiar with command line parameters is likely to give up at the
first hurdle.

--
John Barnett MVP
Associate Expert
Windows Shell/User

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org

The information in this mail/post is supplied "as is". No warranty of any
kind, either expressed or implied, is made in relation to the accuracy,
reliability or content of this mail/post. The Author shall not be liable for
any direct, indirect, incidental or consequential damages arising out of the
use of, or inability to use, information or opinions expressed in this
mail/post..
 
John Barnes said:
system drive and modify the boot.ini to point to the proper partition.
Click to expand...

Odd that you mention that, as that is what I have had to do as well. Not
sure why, but, up until the RTM I did not have that problem in dual booting.
But, my first install of the RTM and I could not boot into it. Doing some
research presented me with the fact that these files had been installed on a
PATA drive that only had data files on it. Once I copied those files over
to the correct boot drive and made the adjustments as you stated, it booted
fine. I also have 2 SATA drives that the XP and Vista are each installed
on, and PATA kept insisting that it be the 0 disk, no matter what
adjustments or changes I made in the BIOS, or drive placement.

I replaced the PATA drive with a new SATA drive, and it is now showing that
it is the 2 disk, as it should. I found it rather quizzical that it only
happened with the RTM, as I have had the same 3 drives in the same machine
throughout the last 4 -5 beta build installs and they installed without
issue.

Jan :)
MS MVP - Windows IE
 
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