Dual Boot, cannot see XP

[AnnMarie]

You are welcome hammerpe33. Murf has a lot of expertise in this type of situation and if he cant resolve it, no-one can.

[AnnMarie]

Originally Posted by hammerpe33

I'll check in the AM for any updates. Although my newborn is probobly going to keep me up anyway

Heh, congratulations.

[Murf]

Hi hammerpe33!

AM is on the right track, appears your boot.ini file is corrupt as the following message;

Invalid Boot.ini file
Booting from C:\windows\
NTDETECT failed

Tells me that when you select XP64 which is on the "D" partition it is looking at your "C" partition.

Also you; " Went to my windows installation on D:. Entered my administrator password. Ran Bootfix. It wrote a new bootsector on Partition C:. I ran bootcfg /rebuild."

I think you need to rebuild the boot.ini file to start with. Since you downloaded and have EasyBCD lets try using it.

Run EasyBCD and go to the "Bootloader Management" window.

1. Under Bootloader Installation Options select; View Settings and post them so we can see what you have.

You may want to go to the "Diagnostics Center" Page and RESCUE my SYSTEM button. Then "elect "Recreate missing/deleted boot files" then "Rescue My System" to begin recover.

[hammerpe33]

Here are the BCD settings:

There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Windows 7
Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: Windows XP64
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr

Also I can only boot to windows 7, so I am using EasyBCD in Windows 7. When I go to "Rescue My System" it is asking me for the correct boot drive. Should I just choose C: which is where Windows 7 is?

Thanks!

[Murf]

Correct Entry
Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

This entry may be wrong:
Name: Windows XP64
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr

I believe the BCD ID: it should be something like this:
{5189b25c-5558-4bf2-bca4-289b11bd29e2}

Try using this one. See what happens

[hammerpe33]

I wasn't able to edit that line directly, so I deleted the entry and re-did it. It now looks like this:
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Windows 7
Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: Windows XP64
BCD ID: {0fba9669-f712-11de-a494-d8761e08b88f}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

I got the same results when trying to boot up XP64 after making this change. I don't know if this matters, but after trying all of this stuff at one point I went to Disk Management to see if I could find out which partittion D: was on. I noticed that D: is a "Logical Drive" while C: is a "Boot, Page File, Crash Dump, Primary Partition". Could installing Windows 7 over Windows RC (on C somehow mess up the MBR on D: so that it is not bootable now? This may make no sense at all I just noticed the difference and was wondering.

[Murf]

You may of found the problem, Windows can't boot from a logical drive.

Right click on My Computer and go to MANAGE

Left pane Disk Management

Right pane shows your drives, right click on the "D" drive and make it ACTIVE.

Reboot

[hammerpe33]

There is no option for me to make this an active partition. I was wondering if I should try a repair installation of XP64???

[Murf]

Sorry been off-line.

Have you tried running checkdsk on the "D" drive????

Also try:

open Computer Management, and then click Disk Management. On the Action menu, click Rescan Disks.

If that doesn't work then:

Try the repair may fix the partition to make it active.

[Murf]

Have you got it fixed yet?

[hammerpe33]

Thanks for checking in. Your ears must have been burning. Here is where I am at. I got pretty much all my software running in WIndows 7. Some of the software needs to be run in XP mode but thats ok. Microsoft Money is the real PITA because it says my license is expired (which it isn't). So after getting all running hunky dory in WIN7 I decided to make one last try for XP64. I used Acronis Disk Director 10 to make D: a primary partition and I was able to activate it in Windows. Now It will not boot at all. All I get is: Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt: <Windows root>\system32\ntoskrnl.exe Please re-install a copy of the above file. Now I am pissed because I just got everything working in Win 7 except MS Money. But I need to get access to Money for all of my Tax info (I have the data files backed up) so I needed to at least try. I tried using the Win 7 DVD to bootsect /NT60 all and it ran but I get the same error. UGH!

[hammerpe33]

Ok, I was able to use Active Boot Disk to activate the correct partition again. The drive letters had also been changed, it seems that activating a prtition makes that partition c:??? Anyway I made the WIn7 partition C: like it was. An now it is activated. The problem now is that I get bootmgr missing when I try to boot. When I go into the vista repait console it does see the Win7 installation. I tried bootrec /fixboot but that didn't work. Any suggestions? I would like to just get Win7 back now and I'll just forget about xp64.

[Murf]

Your dual booting Windows 7 and XP?

You said Vista repair console???

If you can get into either windows, check the Drive Management again and see which drive letters are assigned and the status of the drive??

Your C: drive should be primary active
Your D: drive should also be primary and active

[hammerpe33]

I WAS dual booting Windows 7 64 and Windows XP 64. Sorry, I meant windows 7 repair console. Between work, newborn and trying to get this figured out I am a bit scatterbrained.

So I did some research and found that a lot of people who had this problem had it when they dual booted Vista with another O/S. Each O/S was installed on seperate drives. WHen they removed the drive with the non-vista O/S they were able to use the recovery console to repior startup and get Vista back. Sooooo I deleted the XP64 partition using Active@ Boot Disk. Went into Win 7 repair console ,fixed startup problems and wallah I am now back in windows 7. So at this point I am going to do a fresh install of winxp 64 because I still need it to run my CAD software in it. I wish Win7 XP mode used more than one core and more than 2GB of memory! I appreciate all of your help!

[Murf]

You may end up with the same problem as you always install the older O/S first.

Xp uses the Boot.ini file to boot while Windows 7 does not.

Windows 7 creates a small "hidden" System partition on which it places the boot system files, bootmgr and the folder Boot. Windows XP needs to have access to that partition so that it too can place it's boot system files there. They are ntldr, boot.ini and NTDETECT.COM.

With Windows 7 already installed then to install XP you need to do the following:

Once you have completed the installation of Windows XP you will have temporarily lost your ability to boot into Windows 7. You will now need to restore a dual boot to both Windows 7 and Windows XP. You can use easyBCD to do that. Or you can use VistaBootPRO