multi boot with xp and vista

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Guest

i have 2 hdds, hdd1 has (C:,D:,E:,F:) hdd2 has (H:,I:) i use hdd2 only for
data storage.i m at present using win xp, on hdd1 on (C:) i downloaded and
burnt the iso on a dvd and then could boot my system using that dvd.. and
installed vista on an other partition on hdd1(E:) and when i boot my sys with
out the vista dvd in the dvd drive it directly enters winxp with out even
showing os selection screen.. if i boot the sys with the vista dvd in the dvd
drive then it directly enters vista again with out showing up the os
selection screen... can u ppl plz help me...
 
can i just say that dual bootin wid vista is a no no in my oppinion , iv
thrown a drive away through trying to dual boot, so in the end i used another
drive that i had spare, then set it up as a slave, booted into xp went to in
my computer were that drive is and formated it, , then i took prime drive
out and set that formated slave as a prime drive then installed vista on
that had no probs doin it that way, i have read a few posts about dual bootin
wid vista and noticed that every one had same problem, but im only a novice
and cant really say that it is impossible to dual boot as you are trying but
mine is workin sweet. hope that helps
 
Look where Vista put its boot files when you installed. That should be your
system drive to boot Vista (first in BIOS boot priority and Active
partition)
If you do not have the Vista boot menu including XP post back what your
messages are.
 
Hi, Srid.

The boot process starts with the MBR and partition table, of course, which
locates the boot sector of the system partition. This boot sector points to
the starting point for loading the operating system. The WinXP boot sector
looks in the Root of the system partition for the files NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM
and Boot.ini. The Vista boot sector looks in the same location for the BCD
(Boot Configuration Data) files. WinXP knows nothing at all about Vista,
but Vista Setup knows how to handle an existing WinXP installation if it
finds one.

Vista Setup will include an entry for an "Earlier version of Windows", if it
finds one, on the menu of operating system choices. If you select this
earlier version, BCD will step back out of your way and load NTLDR, etc. If
you have multiple WinXP choices, it will present the Boot.ini menu; if there
is only one WinXP, it will simply boot that one, as always. If you don't
choose the earlier version, then BCD will boot into your Vista.

Neither WinXP nor Vista cares whether it is installed on your first HD or
second, or if it is in a primary partition or a logical drive.

As John Barnes said, you need to locate your \Boot folder (it's probably a
Hidden System folder). Wherever you find \Boot should be your System
Partition when you are running Vista. Wherever you find \NTLDR should be
your System Partition when you are running WinXP. Run Disk Management and
look for the labels; they may very well be different in the two operating
systems. Remember that "drive" letters are not permanent; they may be
reassigned each time you reboot and they may be assigned differently by each
operating system. What is H: when you are running WinXP might be X: when
you are running Vista.

From your description, I suspect that you installed Vista by booting from
the DVD while the WinXP HD was offline, so that Vista Setup could not write
its own boot sector to that HD. Or that your second HD was designated the
boot device during your Vista setup. In either case, you will probably find
the \Boot folder in the first primary partition on your second HD. Now,
when you boot from your first HD, the WinXP boot sector is still there but
has no idea that you've installed Vista. If you will set your BIOS to boot
from the second HD, you should find the Vista boot sector and be able to
boot directly into Vista from there. And you may find the "earlier" option
on your menu there, too.

Let us know where you find \Boot.

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX
(e-mail address removed)
Microsoft Windows MVP
(Currently running Windows Mail 7.0 in Vista x86 RC2 Build 5744)
 
Hi all..
Thanku for ur reply..
Hi R. C. White, MVP

as u said i found the boot folder in my 2nd hdd active partition(H:),i
installed vista in (E: as in xp) an its been shown as (C:) in vista, and as u
said i selected to boot from my 2nd hdd in the bios and it directly entered
vista. again if i boot from 1st hdd it enters xp. but is there any way that i
can get a os selection option at the startup..
 
I've seen occasional posts describing this behavior, but I've never
been able to figure out exactly how and why this happens, because
sufficient details were not provided. I wonder if you could indulge my
curiousity by answering a few questions.

What motherboard (make and model) are you using?
What type of interface (IDE or SATA) does hdd1 use?
What type of interface (IDE or SATA) does hdd2 use?
Are you positive that the BIOS was set to boot from hdd1 when Vista
was installed?

My theory is there's something funny with the motherboard BIOS. With
the motherboards I have tested, if the BIOS is set to boot from the
first hard disk, that's the only disk it will boot from, even if the
first disk is unbootable while the second disk is bootable, and with
or without a Windows installation CD or DVD in the optical drive.
 
You need to rewrite the mbr on C: to point to the Vista bootloader. Probably
the easiest way to do this will be to boot the system with the Vista disk
and use the options to repair the startup. Your mbr will need to either
point to the active partition on H: or write the Vista boot files to C: and
replace the XP set.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
I would do what Rick suggests, but would do it with your 2nd drive set as
first in priority in your bios. That way you will be able to remove Vista,
point to the 1st drive and be back to booting XP. If you do the startup
repair with the XP drive first, you will overwrite the XP boot and it will
be more compicated.
 
HI

can u plz tell the steps on how to repair the startup... so that i can make
the mbr to point active partition on my 2nd hdd(H:)...
 
HI

can u plz tell the steps on how to repair the startup... so that i can make
the mbr to point active partition on my 2nd hdd(H:)...
 
For you I would just suggest you leave the drives as they are. Insert the
DVD into your drive and do the following from Confucious.

boot Vista with the DVD, then
at the second screen (install screen) at the bottom left choose repair. then
at the dialog box highlight your Vista installation and choose next, then
choose "Repair Sart up" at the top of the next dialog box then choose next.
once completed choose finish and the system will reboot.
If it did not work the first time try again. for me twice has been the magic
number,but others
have had to do it three times.
 
Hi,

Start setup like you were installing, but use the advanced options instead
of choosing setup.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
 
Hi John Barnes

I did what u said... but i get something like this "startup repair could not
detect problem""if u have recently connected a new device such as camera or
portable mp3 player remove it and restart, if u still get this contact sys
admin...." i have not connected any thing but still i get this window ,any
other way..??
 
Set your boot priority to the second drive. You said H was active and you
boot into Vista directly that way. Correct?
If yes download VistaBootPro http://www.vistabootpro.org/ Add a legacy
drive to it. Copy ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from the active
partition on your 1st drive which you say boots directly to XP Change the
boot.ini to point to the other drive (rdisk) or quicker, duplicate the entry
and change the rdisk to the other number (0 or 1) change the description
slightly so you can identify it. Reboot. If you see your new boot.ini with
2 entries, select the newer entry and see what happens and note any error
messages, then try the other and see what you get. If you directly get an
error missing ntldr, it is using the original boot.ini and you will need to
change the rdisk in the original boot.ini above. If you ever want to boot
to XP from the 1st disk then you would need both entries again.
You don't say what version of Vista you are using, but if it is beta2, do
not do anything and post back.
Good luck. You may need to do a little clean up later, but try the above
and report back.
 
I had a problem like this with my Gigabyte GA-8N-SLI Royal motherboard.

This motherboard has an nVIDIA chipset with 2 IDE controllers and 4 SATA
connectors. It also has a Promise chipset with one IDE controller and 2
SATA connnectors.

If I had one hard drive on the Promise SATA controller, one on the nVIDIA
IDE (Master on first controller) and one on the nVIDIA SATA, I would get
this phenomona.

- with a bootable DVD in the DVD drive, the BIOS would select the hard drive
on the nVIDIA IDE controller to boot from
- without a bootable DVD in the DVD drive, the BIOS would select the hard
drive on the Promise controller to boot from

To track this down, I changed the text (description) part of the boot.ini
entries so they were different and indicated which drive the boot.ini was
being read from.

It was some time ago, but I have a suspicion that this problem started to
happen when I:

a. removed the IDE drive temporarily then
b. installed XP SP2 in the first partition on the SATA drive on the Promise
controller then
c. reconnected the IDE drive

I could not get any rational response from Gigabyte about this peculiar
behaviour.

I verified that the boot order in the BIOS was set to nVIDIA IDE first.

Although both the nVIDIA and Promise controllers are RAID capabable, I
always had the RAID feature disabled on both.

This got so frustrating, I moved the second SATA drive from the Promise
controller to the nVIDIA controller and disabled the Promise controller in
the BIOS completly! That change "bypassed" the problem and made life
considerably simpler!

I can send (attach) a Word document with the hardware details if that would
be useful to you.

--
Bruce Sanderson (bsanders)
MVP Printing
http://members.shaw.ca/bsanders
(e-mail address removed)

It is perfectly useless to know the right answer to the wrong question.
 
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