Vista ruined my dual boot setup

  • Thread starter Thread starter Guest
  • Start date Start date
G

Guest

Prior to installing Vista, I was dual booting XP and XP. So I installed it as
a 3rd OS in a tri-boot system. It didnt even recognize my installed XPs there
and went thru the installation as if no other OS existed, so no bootloader or
option to choose the OS to boot from. This I could not accept, so I proceeded
to removed Vista by rebooting with the DVD and go thru restoring my PC to its
earlier state. When I got the 'repair' option, there was only the Vista
partition to choose from, no XP to go back to. So I inserted my XP cd to
repair the boot process from the recovery console which it supposedly did,
but when booting into XP I got the NTLDR missing error.

I'll fix it sooner or later, but I why did Vista not detect the other XP
installations? I've installed Vista on another PC also in a dual boot config
and it worked fine. I suspect its something to do with the drive numbering in
the BIOS, I added a 3rd HD recently to install Vista on, but it seems ro have
been numbered before the other drives with the XP installations. So did Vista
just assume that since its on drive 1, then nothing else matters or exists on
drives 2 and 3?

Another thing, Vista scrambles the drive letters and makes things more
confusing and insists on being in C, but when you go into the recovery
console it may be somethign else.
 
Are you running the Vista Upgrade ? From what the MVPs have said, if you
have the upgrade version of Vista, then by license agreement, it will
disable XP, Since you're not suppose to be running it any longer.

I have the full installs and have not had a problem dual booting. Once I
choose Vista or Earlier version, I then get the normal XP bootmenu which
would let me choose which XP to boot.

There have been a few reports (search the group for dual booting) about
people with multiple boots (odd drive configs) that get screwed. Carl F
wrote a guide on how to resolve the issue.

I actually like that Vista makes it's drive C:, regardless of what drive it
is. I'm sure the recovery console, just reports the disks it knows about in
the order it sees them
 
Earlier versions of the OS used Ntldr, Ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to start
the OS. Vista has an extensible pre-operating system boot environment that
can be customized for various firmware interfaces. The Windows Boot Loader
accesses the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store.

Try Start > type msconfig.exe in the search box. > Press Enter. See the boot
tab?

You could also try opening a command prompt and run as administrator. Then
type bcdedit and hit enter. This last one will open the BCD store directly.
--
\/\/arren/\/\iller

When all else fails, Read the instructions.
ISBN-10 0-7356-2296-5
Start > Help and Support

= = =
 
I would install VistaBootPro from VistaBootPro.org and configure it that way.
For the XP installations the Ntldr, Ntdetect.com and boot.ini must be in the
root directory of the legacy OS HD. In my case none were in the root
directory so I had to copy them there before I could multi-boot.
 
You could try installing the free VISTABOOTPro and see if it enables
you to see and choose from your three OS's

I've read that if you have two OS installed and install VISTA to "dual
boot" it lumps the two or more earlier OS's under Other Windows and has
an entry for itself. That if you click on Other Windows you then get
the choice you had before you installed VISTA.

I don't know if this is true or not but VISTABOOTPro might sort out
your multiple OS's if the way you installed VISTA did not destroy them.

Others have explained about the change in the boot files with VISTA and
that you can edit BCD but I gather this is tedious == VISTBOOTPro puts
a GUI front end on this and I found it s m o o t h .....

Google on [VISTABOOTPro] and you'll find it easily enough.
 
Thanks for everyones responses, no I havent asked this before, I'll look at
past responses and Carl F on dual boot. I know about VistaBootPro, I used
EasyBCD a similar program and it detected nothing else in the boot
arrangement other than Vista. I'm not near my PC ATM, but I'm pretty sure I
can fix it with a Barts PE disc or something and reinsert the missing boot
files.

And no this wasnt an upgrade install, I opted for a new installation. Once
again thanks for everones input.

amenx
 
Sorry I made a mistake on the threading and saw the same message twice!

Are all three OS's on the same physical drive? If they are on the same
physical drive are they in individual partitions?

If you are in one of the OS's can you see the other installation files,
like do you have 3 sets of Windows folders one for each OS? I'm a bit
puzzled as to how you are set up.
 
amenx said:
Prior to installing Vista, I was dual booting XP and XP. So I installed it
as
a 3rd OS in a tri-boot system. It didnt even recognize my installed XPs
there
and went thru the installation as if no other OS existed, so no bootloader
or
option to choose the OS to boot from. This I could not accept, so I
proceeded
to removed Vista by rebooting with the DVD and go thru restoring my PC to
its
earlier state. When I got the 'repair' option, there was only the Vista
partition to choose from, no XP to go back to. So I inserted my XP cd to
repair the boot process from the recovery console which it supposedly did,
but when booting into XP I got the NTLDR missing error.

I'll fix it sooner or later, but I why did Vista not detect the other XP
installations? I've installed Vista on another PC also in a dual boot
config
and it worked fine. I suspect its something to do with the drive numbering
in
the BIOS, I added a 3rd HD recently to install Vista on, but it seems ro
have
been numbered before the other drives with the XP installations. So did
Vista
just assume that since its on drive 1, then nothing else matters or exists
on
drives 2 and 3?

Another thing, Vista scrambles the drive letters and makes things more
confusing and insists on being in C, but when you go into the recovery
console it may be somethign else.
Click to expand...

If the install is started by booting the DVD, then it will take the
partition it's installed on as C. If the install is started from the XP
desktop it will take whatever drive letter is next.

Use Vista Boot Pro to straighten out the dual boot.
http://www.vistabootpro.org/
 
Problem solved. As mentioned in my first post, I suspected it was the drive
numbering in the BIOS. When I installed my 3rd drive to put Vista on, the
BIOS set it as the first drive, or ahead of the other drives already there.
So my Vista install (from the DVD) seems to have assumed there are no other
OS's on the other drives. I simply switched the SATA cables to reflect the
proper drives order and booted into XP with no problem. Then re-installed
Vista again, this time it detected the other OS's and put them in the boot
loader. So lesson learned, Vista will not check for other OS's if they're on
drives numbered after the Vista drive.

I simply reconnected the SATA drive cables so
 
Back
Top