What I currently do to switch my OS is to run VBP and tick the appropriate selection in the bootloader tab. I do have the boot page when going into Vista but of course XP can't find find ntldr. This has been going on before using VBP though at least it's easier now with VBP than repairing the install I want to get to. Here's my bootloader info:

Quote:

Entry # 1 Name: Legacy (pre-Longhorn) Microsoft Windows Operating System BCD ID: {ntldr} Boot Drive: F: Windows Drive: System Bootloader: \ntldr Windows Directory: Entry # 2 Name: Microsoft Windows Vista BCD ID: {current} Boot Drive: F: Windows Drive: F: System Bootloader: \Windows\system32\winload.exe Windows Directory: \Windows

I have been following Big2hd's thread but I see that his OS's are on different boot drives so it's not the same case as mine. Thanks for any help.

EDIT: XP lives on C: drive.

Hold off on an answer until I try this

I forgot to try Grav!ty's suggestion!

I guess you are wanting to be able to dual boot from the boot menu instead of having to make the changes with VistaBootPRO each time.

I suggest you boot to XP as that appears to be your system drive (drive C: ) From there, confirm which is your system drive by going to Computer Management>Disk Management. It should show up like this:



Make sure all these files are on your system drive (XP), including the entire contents of the folder named Boot:

AUTOEXEC.BAT
boot.ini (must have and make sure it is pointing to the correct drive/partition)
CONFIG.SYS
IO.SYS
MSDOS.SYS
NTDETECT.COM (must have)
ntldr (must have)

Boot (entire folder and contents)
bootmgr
BOOTSECT.BAK (not critical)
Boot.BAK (not critical)

Copy bootsect.exe from the Program Files>PROnetworks>VistaBootPRO folder and paste it to the the Windows\System32 folder of your XP installation.

Open the command prompt and run:

CD\ and press Enter

bootsect /NT60 ALL and press Enter

Reboot and you should have a Legacy entry or Earlier versions of Windows entry in your boot menu and the Vista installation should show up too.

If not then run bcdedit from XP and copy and paste the info here so that we can see what is going on there.

Hope this works for you augie but I am a little concerned that it won't because I know you have a strange drive setup and I don't know if you ever sorted that out.

Quote:

Hope this works for you augie but I am a little concerned that it won't because I know you have a strange drive setup and I don't know if you ever sorted that out.

No, it's still the same. I'll try your suggestions and see what happens. I did start the work in the above linked post by you that I had forgotten.

Anyways, I'm ordering a new 250GB this month so's I can start completely fresh for once instead of trying to salvage the installs on this one. Thanks Graham. I'll post what happened of course.

Too many oopsies in this post!

Graham, I did all that you stated and it gave me back the old Vista bootscreen and loading XP gave me the '/ntldr not found' error. I tried running 'bcdedit' in XP and got the error that it was not found, probably because the only way I can boot into XP is by uninstalling the Vista bootloader using VBP, and I made triply sure that there were no typos in your instructions.

I'll wait until I get the new drive, at least VBP makes it easier and way quicker to switch the OS for now. Thank you so very much for your time and effort.

I'm including the screenie from the commands I entered, in case there's something there of interest:



EDIT: Just looking for a drive, I found that a WD 250GB w/8MB cache is only $7 CDN cheaper than one with a 16MB cache! Guess which one I'm buying.

It sounds like we are almost there augie

Copy bcdedit.exe from the VistaBootPRO folder and paste it into Windows\System32 of XP and then run bcdedit

I think all we have to do now is change a drive letter or two and that is easy to do. See if you can post the contents of the bcdedit command once you have run bcdedit from XP. If you right click the command prompt window status bar at the top you can select "Select all" and "Copy"

augie, can’t get a handle on your problem without asking you loads of questions about your configuration. Might be easier to try an XP boot floppy – that’s if you have a floppy drive in your computer. This little app will build one for you that will give you two boot options when you boot the computer from it. If neither of them work try editing the boot.ini on the floppy so one of the lines points to the partition number that XP is on.

Grav!ty wrote:

It sounds like we are almost there augie Copy bcdedit.exe from the VistaBootPRO folder and paste it into Windows\System32 of XP and then run bcdedit I think all we have to do now is change a drive letter or two and that is easy to do. See if you can post the contents of the bcdedit command once you have run bcdedit from XP. If you right click the command prompt window status bar at the top you can select "Select all" and "Copy"

OK, here's the screenie:



though I used Snagit if that matters. You better be asleep right now!

McTavish wrote:

augie, can’t get a handle on your problem without asking you loads of questions about your configuration. Might be easier to try an XP boot floppy – that’s if you have a floppy drive in your computer. This little app will build one for you that will give you two boot options when you boot the computer from it. If neither of them work try editing the boot.ini on the floppy so one of the lines points to the partition number that XP is on.

Thank you sir for the help and it is a long story, though I'd rather stay on one track at a time for the moment. I'll try your option next if things don't work out. Thanks.

Judging by that screenshot augie, the problem right now is that your XP installations bootloader is pointed at the same partition as your Vista installation, drive F:

If XP is installed on drive C: then you need to run these commands (again from Windows XP), to correct that:

bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=C:

followed by:

bcdedit /set {ntldr} osdevice partition=C:

On reboot you should be able to boot into either Vista or XP from the boot menu. What build are you running there by the way?