I'm by far not an expert, but it seems to me after reading the myriad of
similar posts, that when Vista is installed in a dual-boot or multi-boot
situation, it assumes the user is too inept to have thought far enough ahead
and installs its own boot manager. This is all well and good, except for the
fact that this boot manager is by default installed on the first partition,
C:\, regardless of into which partition Vista is actually being installed.
Thus, when you re-installed XP, in your instance, this boot manager was
over-written. So instead of re-installing Vista, try the freeware product
that has been bandied about called "VistaBootPro." Andre and a few others
that are very knowledgeable have recommended it on this forum.
PartitionMagic (about $55.00) also has a boot manager called, creatively,
"BootMagic."
Ultimately, to avoid this when installing in this configuration, if you
simply hide all drives and partitions except for the partition you have
designated for Vista, directly prior to installing Vista, and you have a boot
manager installed, it should not be able to install its boot manager anywhere
except the partition that is visable.
Perhaps, and I plan to do this myself, we should encourage Microsoft with
the feedback that Vista should give users the option of installing the Vista
boot-loader when Vista is installed on a partition other than C:\ or if Vista
detects another O/S while being installed.
But remember, I'm no expert!