So I had a nice XP Media Center running aready. I then installed Vista on the second partition that I created earlier (before installing XP). Once I'm on Vista (and it was running nicely), I downloaded the VistaBoot PRO. Before I played with it, I tested whether both Windows are fine, and yes, I could get into both effortlessly. Then I went back to Vista, run the VistaBoot PRO (since I want to change the name of the two OS's into XP Media Center and Vista Ultimate instead of having Older Version of Windows and Microsoft Windows). I changed the name, did NOT change the partition. That's about all I did. (I have made mistake once before by changing the partition letter and I had to clean install both).

But then.. POOF!!! I could not get into any of them. The XP gives me the infamous NTLDR message, the Vista gives me the winload message. I put my Vista DVD in, and I could recover my Vista. But I could not recover my XP, which is my main Windows. What should I do now? Do I have to clean install both, again??? This is the second time already..

Help me.. *sigh*

last time i saw NTLDR error press ctrl+alt+del. the harddrive was on its last leg. Might run a diagnostics on it first.

Welcome to PROnetworks re2st!! Please stop by our Introduction Area so we can welcome you properly.

As to your issue................. it "does" sound as if some partition info was changed while you were in Vista (The non System Drive), but that's neither here nor there, you want it fixed! So here is a suggestion:

Boot your XP CD to the Recovery console and use fixboot, boot back to XP and run VBPro 2.0 and REINSTALL the Vista bootloader, then ADD A VISTA ENTRY (Based on where Explorer says it's located)

Another option is that once you have XP fixed (Using fixboot), you can then boot the Vista DVD to WinRE (Which will find/fix the Vista entry), reboot and you should have both entries, but will want to change the descriptions

Although I am not sure as to why this caused your boot problems as I have successfully changed just the names of the OS's in VistaBootPRO (as a matter of fact, I just renamed 3 entries for XP, MCE 05, and Vista and had no problems), one thing I would highly suggest to do is before making any changes to the BCD store, use the backup feature in VistaBootPRO to save your current configuration. This way if you have this kind of problem, you can restore the original

One of the biggest confusions with the BCD store is that Vista and XP, and even booting into the WinRE and using bcdedit can all see the drive structure differently in terms of drive letters. This can be very confusing when you look at the entries in XP and see a drive listed as C, and then see the same entry in Vista but the drive letter is D or something else.

If you follow the instructions in the last post though, you should be able to restore your bootloader so you can access both OS's.

wow. thanks for such very quick responses. i have been able to restore my BCD this time (hey this new version is just out today or what? i installed it last night, there was no backup/restore option, that I had to reinstall both OS's). anyway, i don't know.. I did not do anything against the instruction. i followed it precisely, just changed the name of the OS's not the drive letter.

BTW, I just want to reconfirm that I should run the VistaBoot PRO from within Vista (and modify the boot behavior within Vista), and not installing it on XP (and modify the boot behavior from XP). Is that right?

Thanks!

Hey make sure you check out the user guide here: http://www.pronetworks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=78186 or you can get the same material in the help file

re2st wrote:

(hey this new version is just out today or what? i installed it last night, there was no backup/restore option, that I had to reinstall both OS's)

yes!!! We released VistaBootPRO 2.0 this morning

re2st wrote:

wow. thanks for such very quick responses. i have been able to restore my BCD this time (hey this new version is just out today or what? i installed it last night, there was no backup/restore option, that I had to reinstall both OS's). anyway, i don't know.. I did not do anything against the instruction. i followed it precisely, just changed the name of the OS's not the drive letter. BTW, I just want to reconfirm that I should run the VistaBoot PRO from within Vista (and modify the boot behavior within Vista), and not installing it on XP (and modify the boot behavior from XP). Is that right? Thanks!

You can install VistaBootPRO in either or both XP/Vista - however, Vista and XP see the BCD entries related to how they each see the drive letters, so in many cases what is listed as drive C in XP, may be listed as D (or something else) in Vista, and vice versa.

Sorry you got the old version yesterday, but the new version has supports the later versions of Vista (Beta 2 and 5456) which had some changes in bcdedit and the BCD store.

Actually, in a dual boot environment with XP being you "System drive", you absolutely DO WANT to run VBPro from there. Doing it this way will give you the "right feel" for the drive letters they way they should be (Logically speaking of course)
Always remember that when using VBPro, you can make most adjustment from any OS, but if you're going to assign drive letters with VPBro, ONLY DO THIS FROM THE SYSTEM DRIVE and match the drive letters to what Explorer reports

re2st, to fix your problem, I would do the following:

1) Boot from your XP CD, and select clean install --- then install a new copy of XP to the previous Vista partition --- you need not activate this copy of Windows, nor install your software or anything...

2) This will either create a new XP/XP dual boot (most likely) --- if so, then Upgrade the new XP to Vista

3) Or, if your previous XP is invisible, then you should be able to edit your boot.ini so that it can see your main XP --- reboot, make sure both XP setups are working --- then upgrade the new XP to Vista...

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BTW, you can avoid these driveswap complications by using the following installation method : create a small dedicated partition (4GB for example) and copy the entire contents of the Vista DVD to that location --- then boot into the new XP, and run the upgrade setup from there, by browsing to the partition and runing setup from that location --- doing it this way should ensure identical drive letters in XP and Vista, and should help you reduce the headache pills budget

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Good luck

OK. I have tried running VistaBoot PRO on both sides (XP and Vista). And it gives me the same result, unable to boot into any of them. Thank God I have the bcd file backed-up. I run Recovery option on Vista, and then restore the bcd. I guess.. I will just be content with what I have right now. "Older Version of Windows" and "Microsoft Windows" with 30 seconds delay is not that bad anyway...

Thanks for all the help. I really appreciate it.