Vista Dual Boot Help

Roy Munson

I have a Dell E520 that came Windows MCE on it and I wanted to try Vista so I partitioned the drive to add Vista Home Premium with Partition Magic. I installed VHP to the new partition and all went well except I don't get an option to boot to XP, it defaults to Vista and doesn't give me a choice. I went to disk managment in Vista and the partition for XP is there and listed as healthy but it says it's 100% free?? Also the partition for XP doesn't have a drive letter and it's not listed in "Computer" in Vista were the drives are listed.

I'm stumped.

I've done lots of Google searches for fixes but none seem to work.

I've tried EasyBCD and I tried to do a repair of XP's bootini using the recovery console in a XP installation disc. I'm unable to access the recovery console!

I still can't boot to XP and there is no menu at startup giving a choice of OS's.

I really wanted to try Vista but I didn't want to give up XP and thought dual booting would be a good way to try it out since I've run several dual boots in the past.

I'm not a novice but I'm certainly not a computer expert and this has me tearing my hair out.

Any help would be appreciated.

AsSiMiLaTeD

So you're saying that when in Vista, in Windows Explorer, that the XP drive doesn't shot up?

AsSiMiLaTeD

Do this:

Boot up into the XP installation CD and go through the steps like you're going to install a fresh copy of XP. Get to the screen where you choose which drive to install it to.

Is the XP drive listed there with a letter? If not, how's it listed?

Airplay355

Shoulda gotten a Mac

AsSiMiLaTeD

Nah, because if he had problems with that he'd really be screwed...but let's not digress into the mire of that discussion

Roy Munson

Polkmaniac wrote: »

Do this:

Boot up into the XP installation CD and go through the steps like you're going to install a fresh copy of XP. Get to the screen where you choose which drive to install it to.

Is the XP drive listed there with a letter? If not, how's it listed?

I tried that and I got a blue screen error that said something about something being corrupted or a virus. I don't believe this to be true. I think the boot.ini IS corrupted or the NTLDR is missing. From my searches for a fix I found out that Vista hoses the XP boot.ini. Some people were able to fix it with the method you suggested but I'm unable to do it.

So I can't get the the installation screen or the recovery console!

So you're saying that when in Vista, in Windows Explorer, that the XP drive doesn't shot up?

Correct!

AsSiMiLaTeD

You may not be able to get the recovery console, but you should be able to do the following:

Boot the computer with the XP CD in the drive.
Once you get in, you should have the option to repair or I think press ESC to install a fresh copy. Press ESC or whatever it is, to act like you're going to install a fresh copy.
It should take you to a screen where you pick which drive or partition to install XP to - that's where you need to see if your drive is listed.

The ability to install a fresh copy is independent of anything else, whether you have a virus, corrupt OS, or even a bad NTLDR file. The XP install disc basically 'assumes' none of that exists anyway for it's purposes.

So, unless you have a hardware failure somewhere you should at least be able to get to that screen, regardless if you have a hosed XP installation or missing NTLDR.

If that doesn't work, let me know exactly what steps you're taking and I'll try to replicate on a second machine around here.

Bottom line is unless you have a hardware failure or a bad XP install disc, you should be able to do this part.

AsSiMiLaTeD

Oh, and this assumes you actually have a real XP Installation disc and not a Dell recovery disc with some mutant form of XP...

Roy Munson

I have two real XP install disc's..NO mutants! LOL

This is what happens when I boot with a XP installation disk:

Setup starts to load the files necessary for installation. If I try to press "esc" or "R" it just ignores it and continues to load the setup files. When done I get an error message that says:

"A problem has been detected and windows has been shut down to prevent damage to your computer."

Check for viruses or corrupted windows installation blah, blah, blah.....

Technical information:

Stop: Oxoooooo7B (OxF78E2524,OxCooooo34,Oxooooooooo,Oxooooooooo)

btw..the partition with XP on it shows up in Vista's partition app, it has no drive letter.