Installed Vista Beta 2 then XP, Vista now broken

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I've had a test system running for over a month now. I wanted to install XP
on a second drive. The XP installation got through everything i needed to
before rebooting. Upon reboot, the Vista drive responds with "error loading
operating system".

I tried to run the Startup Repair utility from the Vista DVD and it claims
it can't fix the boot sector.

I'm about to go ahead and backup my stuff and just install XP first and
Vista 2nd, which I know works, but this is really not a very good outcome.
Installing XP on an entirely different drive should never corrupt the c-drive
vista boot partition.
 
XP always writes a new master boot record on install as will Windows 2000.
In essence, you could view it now as XP is installed first and reinstall
Vista and you'll have your first second scenario. A repair install may be
an option given to you once in setup.
 
If you are attempting to dual boot then you need to partition your primary
system drive into two partitions. Use one for the installation of an older
operating system and you need to do this first. Then boot your VISTA CD and
choose the option in the BIOS to boot from DVD/CD and then install vista
into the extended partition. Then you can easily dual boot which is what I
am doing now.

regards
Robert
 
Ron Rector said:
You can try this:

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/default.aspx?scid=kb;es;919529
Click to expand...

I get why all of this happens, understand how it would work, and have tried
the repair in that support article. "bootsect.exe -nt60 all"

The repair did not work. I think this is the flaw. Maybe Vista needs to
automatically backup the entire bootmgr info somewhere where XP couldn't
damage it and then have a tool that can easily undo what XP does. Maybe
that's what bootsect is supposed to do, but it's not working on my machine
and it sounds like from reviewing other people's comments on this problem
that it hasn't worked for them either.

If nothing else, I would expect MS to have a detailed tech spec on what has
happened and how it can be undone by using disk tools.

David
 
Standard practice - always install the "older" OS first in a dual boot
situation - repeat "older" first. Install Vista from within XP - select
custom install and designate drive/partition for Vista - results in dual
boot setup.
Setting BIOS to boot from CD(DVD) drive and installing Vista may result in
drive letter designations being reversed within Vista - no problem a as long
as you are aware of the change when using Vista.
 
AJR said:
Standard practice - always install the "older" OS first in a dual boot
Click to expand...

I think that's clear. Since discovering my problem, I have learned the way I
was supposed to do this. But I'm in this little hell we call Vista broken by
XP and I want to know if there is a way out _without_ reinstalling everything
from scratch.

So my Vista drive is overwritten with XP bootldr stuff.

Is there a way to restore the Vista boot manager or not?
1) Tried bootsect -nt60 c: without success
2) ?
3) Reinstall XP first, then Vista.

That's my question.
 
It will take you longer to fix it (when you figure in the time spent waiting
for replies to these posts) than to just do it all over again the right way.
 
AJR said:
I think that's clear. Since discovering my problem, I have learned the
way I was supposed to do this. But I'm in this little hell we call
Vista broken by XP and I want to know if there is a way out _without_
reinstalling everything from scratch.

So my Vista drive is overwritten with XP bootldr stuff.

Is there a way to restore the Vista boot manager or not?
1) Tried bootsect -nt60 c: without success
2) ?
3) Reinstall XP first, then Vista.
That's my question.
Click to expand...

Try this:

X:\boot\Bootsect /nt60 ALL

Where X is yor CD\DVD drive.
That should put all back into the BCD store.

ko van Zeelan
 
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