Dual-booting Vista and XP 1

[btfsplk]

How can I re-establish my Vista bootloader after installing XP home? The Vista recovery disk that came with the computer does not contain the repair software, and the available programs such as VistaBootPro don't seem to work for one reason or another.

 

[linney]

If the Recover Software doesn't do it for you perhaps you should check with the Help and Support provided by the OEM manufacturer. Are you booting from the recovery media or trying to launch it from within an operating system?

VistaBootPro is usually pretty good in handling this type of problem. Have you tried their Forum?

http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/index.php

Have you tried using VistaBootPro from both operating systems, running as Administrator in Home, or Elevated (right-click and Run As Administrator) in Vista?

How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

 

[btfsplk]

Thanks for responding, Linney. I started out with a new HP computer with Vista installed. HP was no help at all in setting up the dual booting, and in fact recommended against it. They felt I oughta learn to love Vista. I did find the the APCMag site you referenced, and used it to partition the disk and install XP. When I got to the part about repairing the Vista bootloader, the article instructed me to insert the Vista DVD and use the "repair computer" routine. As I stated before, I don't have the full Vista Disk, and the one HP gave me doesn't have the repair computer capability. I tried VistaBootPro, but there is something wrong with their software. I can't get to the bottom of the system bootloader screen to execute anything. Besides, the option it gives me is to uninstall the legacy(XP)bootloader, which would put me back where I started. Their forum did talk about the oversized screen problem, but their recommendation to re-download it didn't work for me. That's when I initiated this post.

 

[linney]

Are you talking about the screen which is titled "System Bootloader Maintenance" and the "Install Bootloader" button?

What happens if you increase your Display Resolution to say 1280 x 1024, can you see the button then?

See what this says about OEM and Startup Repair.

Startup Repair: frequently asked questions

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/5c59f8c1-b0d1-4f1a-af55-74f3922f3f351033.mspx#EX

 

[btfsplk]

Thanks again, Linney. My first choice would be to use the repair function recommended by the Microsoft help site you cited. Unfortunately, I don't have a Vista Installation disk. I only received a Vista recovery disk set, which I think does not include the repair routine. As for the VistaBootPro alternative, your suggestion to increase the screen resolution did fix the problem of access to the "Install Bootloader" button - Thanks! I do have the one remaining problem before proceeding with VistaBootPro. The options on the screen are "Windows Vista Bootloader(uninstall legacy bootloader)" and "Force Bootloader install". It would seem that the first option would uninstall XP, which I don't want to do. Is "Force Bootloader Install" the one to use?

 

[firewolfrl]

do you have room for a second harddrive?
load the xp on the second harddrive
and use the Vista recovery for original drive
then use a third party boot manager. I don't have the link for it but I bet Linney does for the Vista program

my rule of thumb is one OS per harddrive

I do alot of multiboot (I don't call it dualboot)
here is some old links for ideas for you

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1370154&page=1

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1411416

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1410557

http://www.tek-tips.com/viewthread.cfm?qid=1407596

 

[btfsplk]

Thanks, Firewolfrl. I hadn't thought of that. I do have a second hard drive, which I only use for backups. If I can't solve the problem any other way, I suppose I could move XP to the second drive. Sounds like a big deal, though.

 

[firewolfrl]

nice thing about 2 drives is you can crash the one and still boot the other
I just recently had a power outage that flipped on and off for about 20 times in a 30 second period. I do have a UPS and whatever came in fried it. the only issue I had was I had one of my main OS drive created an unbootable scenerio. this in itself was not an issue as I just booted to the other OS. I did not lose any data and was up and running just by choosing the other OS in the Bootmanager. The drive on the otherhand I had to replace it. It failed in another computer and even zeroing out the drive it had a bad bootsector...Oh well! it made a great fridge magnet and coasters.

My system has 6 harddrives and 3 OS's for the moment...lol

just to note I complained to the company about the PSU and they sent me a new one (upgrade even) and had me send the old one back to then so they could figure what failed. They even paid for the shipping

 

[linney]

I'm not that familiar with VistaBootPro, so anything I say would only be a guess concerning the options. You are better off asking that question on the VistaBootPro Forum, or hopefully someone who has used that option may post a definitive answer here.

 

[btfsplk]

Thanks, Linney and Firewolfrl. On Linney's suggestion, I went to the VistaBootPro to see if others had had a similar experience. What I found was a series of nightmares that were never fully resolved. It seems that even the VistaBootPro folks don't have a predictable and bulletproof way to get Vista and XP to live in harmony. At this point, I have chickened out on trying to get Vista going again. XP supports all of my programs, and runs a lot faster, anyhow. Thanks to both of you for trying to help.

 

[tlcscousin]

http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

The above link is to another program that edits the bootmenu of Vista.

http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EB...e;jsessionid=F145CAC881DA355F8934DD3EB26A1990

This is the documentation.

I tried both and this one was easier than the vistabootpro

 

[btfsplk]

Thanks tlcscousin. The last time I tried EasyBCD, it corrupted XP without fixing Vista. I hope I can get up the nerve to try it again. I read the documentation, and it sounds promising.

 

[warmlf]

Hi all,

This is my first time on a forum so please bear with me. All of you guys are more up to date on this stuff than I am. I am interested in a dual boot for XP and Vista also. I really don't care for Vista at the moment but I know I will have to use it eventually anyway so I may as well start liking it. I need to install XP only because I use some software that isn't compatible with Vista and never will be. I don't have a particular question (yet) but I enjoy reading everyones comments and replies. Keep up the good work!!!

 

[linney]

warmlf,

Welcome to the forum.

Besides dual booting, consider if you can make use of things like Virtual PC 2007, which is a free download from Microsoft.

Virtual PC 2007

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/...3199-48a3-afa2-2dc0b40a73b6&displaylang=en&tm

With that you can run either operating system, one as the host, and one as the guest, which ever you prefer.

Make older programs run in this version of Windows

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/bf416877-c83f-4476-a3da-8ec98dcf5f101033.mspx