OK, I've totally confused myself trying to get back into my old XP MCE installation after installing Vista and could do with being pointed in the right direction.

The problem I am having is that I just can't seem to get the legacy OS entry in VistaBootPro right as whenever I select XP MCE from the bootloader, my machine resets. I thought this might have been a MBR problem on the XP HDD, but I can boot to XP no problem if I physically remove the Vista HDD.

I tried to install Vista from XP, but for some reason it wouldn't let me (something about the drives not meeting its criteria...), so instead I booted from the DVD and did it that way instead. The whole process I followed was:

Started with Windows XP MCE 2005 installed on a SATA drive (the only HDD in the PC at the time).

Installed an 80GB IDE drive and fully formatted to NTFS from XP.

Installed Vista on the IDE drive by booting from Vista DVD

The problem seems to be the whole which drive thinks its C:\ issue as XP where as it appears as G:\ under Vista and Vista appears as D:\ under XP.

Other information that might be of use:

the IDE drive's jumper is set to cable select

The Vista build I'm using is RC1 (5600)

I'm using VistaBootPro v2.1

Any help would be greatly appriciated!

tomallen35,

Welcome to PROnetworks. When you get the chance stop by our Intro Area and tell us a little about yourself.

I am currently looking into the exact same problem for someone else who posted here with similar specs. It seems that there is a missing link between the OS's (Vista in particular) and booting a SATA and IDE. I think, you might have to switch your primary drive in the BIOS in order to boot properly to each one. For example, Vista is on IDE (C, then in the BIOS this needs to be the primary drive in order to boot properly. Same thing with XP. We are looking into this further and hope to have a definite answer shortly. If this does not work, please let us know.

HTH,
Jason

Thanks for the advice!

Just to be certain, how should VistaBootPro be configured? Should i list the legacy OS on the drive letter that Vista thinks it is (G:\) or should i put it down as what XP thinks it is (C:\).

Currently, this is what i have:

There are a total of 2 OSes installed into the boot manager.
Current timeout before default boots: 10 seconds.
Default OS: Microsoft Windows Vista

Entry # 1

Name: Microsoft Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Boot Drive: C:
Windows Drive: C:
System Bootloader: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry # 2

Name: Microsoft Windows XP MCE 2005
BCD ID: {40fa6197-41dc-11db-ac9d-00146c2fd193}
Boot Drive: G:
Windows Drive:
System Bootloader: \ntldr
Windows Directory:


Thanks again

Quote:

The problem I am having is that I just can't seem to get the legacy OS entry in VistaBootPro right as whenever I select XP MCE from the bootloader, my machine resets. I thought this might have been a MBR problem on the XP HDD, but I can boot to XP no problem if I physically remove the Vista HDD. # Installed an 80GB IDE drive and fully formatted to NTFS from XP. # Installed Vista on the IDE drive by booting from Vista DVD The problem seems to be the whole which drive thinks its C:\ issue as XP where as it appears as G:\ under Vista and Vista appears as D:\ under XP.

I had the same problem with an IDE and a SATA, what finally worked for me was to get rid of the IDE drive and just USE the SATA for booting. I scrapped my 80GB IDE by doing what you did, pluging and unpluging. I'd be interested in seeing what jbullard comes up with but my rig will stay IDE free, they never wanted to play together as boot devices. I'll see if I can find my thread about this from last year. Specs in my sig.

EDIT: I didn't mention that I had XP on IDE and Vista on SATA.

That's interesting, as the MOBO in my sig has support for SATA and eventually I want to move to SATA drives, and was considering running SATA and IDE for the interim until I can go all SATA............ this may take some thought............

I'm wondering if you partition the SATA with only logical drives (A single extended with contained logical drives) and install Vista if it would peacefully coexist with XP on the Primary IDE partition........??

i wouldn't have bothered with the ide drive either, but unfortunately Vista doesn't like the drivers i have for it during the install proces. no matter which drivers i use (including the ones i use when i install xp), it refuses to detect the drive.

the motherboard i'm using in case its of any interest is a Gigabyte GA-700Pro2 (Rev1) which has a sil3112 sata raid controller. Gigabyte's vista support is non-existent so i've tried searching for generic silicon image drives but that hasn't helped much.

anyways, i would ideally like to keep vista very much seperate from my xp install as i'm having a lot of stability and compatibility issues with vista still.

DFI has 3112 and 3114 drivers on its site, but same deal --> Vista rejects them and I am fortunate that Vista DOES recognize my SiL3114 during pre-installation............ although once in Vista and I try to install the SiL3114 driver, Vista crashes on reboot and I have to use LKGC to get back in........