Vista install failed now MBR corrupted and unfixable

[Guest]

I installed Vista RC1 on a XP home system in a empty partition. The install
failed and when I tried to reboot the ntldr turned out to be missing.

Now the MBR is corrupted and unfixable. Ntdlr has been retored but is
compressed but the fils is not able to be seen by the OS to change the
attribut.e.

I can boot via a utility disk to my XP desktop.

Please HELP!!!!

 

[Kerry Brown]

Do you have an XP CD? Boot to the recovery console from the CD and use the
following two commands.

fixmbr
fixboot

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314058/EN-US/

You can also change the compressed attrib from the recovery console.

If that doesn't work I have had success with some of the mbr repair
utilities on the ultimate boot CD

http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/

If all else fails you can do a repair install of XP

http://michaelstevenstech.com/XPrepairinstall.htm
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341

 

[John Barnes]

I agree except that if you used the copy command, Windows expands compressed
files automatically
..cab files are the only ones you have to concern yourself with on copying.

Also check you boot.ini and make sure it has the proper entries.

You could also download VistaBootPro or EasyBCD to fix the MBR back to the
XP one.

 

[Rock]

I installed Vista RC1 on a XP home system in a empty partition. The
install
failed and when I tried to reboot the ntldr turned out to be missing.

Now the MBR is corrupted and unfixable. Ntdlr has been retored but is
compressed but the fils is not able to be seen by the OS to change the
attribut.e.

I can boot via a utility disk to my XP desktop.

Please HELP!!!!

Others are helping with tech advice, so I'll just add this. Vista should
only be installed on a test system. One that you can afford to blow away
the installed OS's and reinstall.

 

[John Barnes]

Great advice, but too late for this poster and thousands of OP to this group
who ignore it.

 

[Guest]

Thanks Kerry,

After a rollercoaster couple of days of completely loosing all my partition
info after using "fixmbr" and finding a utility to restore it, I then created
a new Vista CD and was able to install it to another clean System (Boot)
volume and separate Vista files volume as I found in the BitLocker Encryption
creation FAQ. I made the new small partion active and was able to
successfully launch the extremely cool Vista OS RC1. I then was able to
search the help to find how to change the boot process which lead me to the
"fixboot /lh" command. Resetting the XP volume as Active, and copying the
ntldr from that utility I bought and then uncompressing it , I am now able to
boot directy into XP again.

MS should have prevented ntdlr from being compressed by hard encoding it as
such, a long time ago. I had to do a repair/reinstall at least 5 times in
years gone by before I learned that it could be uncompressed with the repair
console. Is it still possible to do that in a patch sometime in the future
for Vista and XP and any other OS that is affected?

Can you get MS to put a small line somewhere in the beginning of the Vista
install shell about fixing the XP (or other MS OS) bootsector by running
"fixboot /lh" from the recovery console, I am sure that would eliminate many
headaches from others with the same problem.

Now I am trying to figure out how to install the new bootloader onto the XP
volume and to dual-boot XP & Vista without doing a complete reinstall. Any
Ideas?

Thanks for the prompt response.

 

[Guest]

I know, this is on my games compuer. If it should crash then, I would only
shed a quick tear as I have my savefiles backed up.

Thanks for the headsup!

 

[John Barnes]

Now I am trying to figure out how to install the new bootloader onto the
XP
volume and to dual-boot XP & Vista without doing a complete reinstall.
Any
Ideas?

You don't need Vista boot files on the XP drive. Make the Vista boot file
partition your system drive (first in boot priority and active partition).
Then copy the ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini files to the same partition.
You use either VistaBootPro or EasyBCD (Google) to add a legacy system entry
to your Vista boot process. When you select the legacy system, you will get
the XP system or you will have to modify the boot.ini to point to the rdisk
and partition that the xp system is on. If you have a problem you can use
the XP recovery console and the bootcfg /rebuild command to get the proper
entry.

 

[Guest]

Thanks for the fyi on VistaBootPro and EasyBCD.

VistaBootPro, has coding prblems and produced several error messages and
would nor do anything but create a backup.

EasyBCD lookas just like VistaBootPro but has no backup or restore feature
which made me a little nervous. I did however successfully rearange things,
elliminain the Vista System volume and create a dual-boot but re-installing
Vista again mangled the XP boot by deleting the ntldr. EasyBCD to the rescue
and with a bit of nervous apprehension I was able to recreate the boot
structure for XP and am able to dual-boot with no problems.

However, I created a second administrator account to test the completeion of
the file transfer procedure and althought the transfer completed (Not sure
everything came over successfully yet), I have a curious new problem. Both
logons are administrator accounts but have no administrator credentials. I
now get a message that an administrator is required to do this and that. I
can't change provileges either and can no longer run programs other than IE.

Any ideas?