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How To: Modify BCD using bcdedit when install XP after Vista

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Postby Grav!ty » Fri Jul 14, 2006 6:21 am

If you want to get rid of the Vista boot menu then do the following:

1. Insert your Windows Vista DVD while you are in Windows XP and browse to the boot folder on the Vista DVD. Copy bootsect.exe and paste it into the Windows\system32 folder of your Windows XP installation.

2. From the command prompt (DOS window at Start>Programs>Accessories) run this command:

bootsect /NT52 ALL

This will remove the Windows Vista boot menu and you should the be able to get the advanced menu back by hitting F8 repeatedly at startup.

You can also try hitting F8 real fast as soon as you have selected "Earlier versions of Windows" :yesnod:
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Postby Zyxthior » Mon Aug 14, 2006 4:44 pm

Is there a way to edit Vista's Boot information when 'outside' of the Vista installation?

My question arise from the use of making Backup images of an O/S and restoring them to a different physical partition. In the case of Windows XP, when you did something like this Windows XP would not initially boot until you modified the 'boot.ini' to the new partition in which you restored Windows XP to. This could be done using a little program called Editbini from a Dos partition.

Now that Windows Vista's boot information is part of the registry, is this still possible? Can I get into the Vista Registry or Boot Info when I'm not not booted into Vista?

I've been able to restore Vista partitions to other "Primary" partitions, but using the Install disk to 'fix' the installation, but have had no luck doing this with Logical partitions. I'd like to keep all of Vista's boot 'components' all on one partition and use a third-party bootmanager (XOSL) to manage various O/S. Vista is the first one that hasn't been easily changeable.
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Postby jrfree1 » Mon Aug 14, 2006 5:08 pm

Hi Zyxthior, and Welcome to PROnetworks!

The BCD info for Vista is not stored in the registry, rather it is stored in the Boot folder on your system partition. You can access the BCD store outside of Vista in a few ways. An easy way to manage Vista boot entries is to use VistaBootPRO, available as a free download <a href="http://vistabootpro.org" target="_blank">HERE</a>. VistaBootPRO works in XP, Server 2k3, and of course Vista.

You can also make modifications to the Vista Boot entries by using bcdedit.exe from any of these operating systems, as well as using it through a command prompt via the Vista setup DVD recovery options.

I don't know if you can use an image of a Vista install from a primary partition and restore it to a logical partition due to differences in the MFT which is copied when you create an image. Perhaps another member here has more experience with this. Generally I have shied away from using the Logical partitions for Vista due to some problems in earlier builds, although most of these have been fixed in the most recent builds.

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Postby JabbaPapa » Mon Aug 14, 2006 6:06 pm

Welcome to PROnetworks, Zyxthior !!!

My, that's a dense first post :lol: j/k ^*^

jrfree1 has the goods, and others may also help -- but regarding primary versus logical partitions, primary are intended to contain OS setups, whilst logical are intended to contain data.

Windows takes little advantage from this parallel structure, but I believe that data loss will be less likely if you organise your rig as suggested ...

I can't demonstrate this, but it does seem to me that OS I/O is faster with a primary partition, and database management faster and more efficient on a logical drive.

Then again. I've no benchmarks, and this may still be a false impression --- it's subtle in any case :yesnod:

---

The only important thing is to avoid the "sandwich effect" whereby hard drives are configured so that primary and logical partitions alternate without much order --- in fact primary ones should be grouped together near the center of the drive, and logical partitions occupy ther remaining space.
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Postby McTavish » Mon Aug 14, 2006 9:15 pm

Is there a way to edit Vista's Boot information when 'outside' of the Vista installation?

There is Zyxthior, but that
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Postby Speckledegg » Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:23 am

My First Post!

If anyone cares, I battled with these problems for a week. My Vista install didn't pick up my XP install. I reinstalled XP and couldn't boot vista. I recovered vista startup from DVD and then I couldn't boot XP.

I tried VistaBootPro, and manually editing the BCD entries in Vista to try and add my XP install to the Vista boot menu. This failed as the bootloader just wouldn't run XP. I read about a lot of solutions but all failed. I eventually came to this solution which is a bit of a hack.

I copied the bootsect.exe file from the VistaDVD/boot/ directory and placed it on my harddrive (doesn't really matter where). I then created a .bat file with notepad on my Vista desktop (need to run in Administrator mode so you need to convert it to an .exe (google: .bat to .exe)). The .bat file contained:

cd\
cd boottools (or whereever you placed the bootsect.exe)
bootsect /nt52 all
shutdown /r /c "Restarting to XP" /t 10

Firstly a directory change to the location of the bootsect.exe file.
Then the bootsect /nt52 all command switches the bootsect to find the old windows install. The shutdown command restarts the PC (/r is for restart, /c is for a comment and /t is for the time it should wait)

Once converted the bat to an exe and ran in Admin mode it made the changes and rebooted into XP. I then repeated the process in XP except changed the bootsect command to bootsect /nt60 all. And the comment to Restarting to Vista. And just left that as a .bat file.

I then created shortcuts with nice icons etc. So it will remain in whichever operating system until I click the icon and then will change the boot sequence.

It's shocking I know but it is the only solution which worked for me and I thought it might help some others.

Thanks
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Postby Grav!ty » Sun Nov 12, 2006 8:28 am

Welcome to PROnetworks Speckledegg. That's very good info you posted and I'm sure it will come in useful to someone in the same position ^*^
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Postby aleinss » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:34 pm

I just did a dual boot with Windows 2000 and all I had to do was:

1. Add an entry for Windows 2000 using VBP
2. Install Windows 2000
3. Run Startup Repair from Windows Vista DVD

Did nothing with bootsect
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Postby Grav!ty » Mon Nov 13, 2006 5:41 pm

aleinss wrote:I just did a dual boot with Windows 2000 and all I had to do was:

1. Add an entry for Windows 2000 using VBP
2. Install Windows 2000
3. Run Startup Repair from Windows Vista DVD

Did nothing with bootsect


It looks like you had Vista installed first and on the system drive aleinss, in which case you are totally correct as arcldr and boot.ini would have placed been placed on the system drive and the Startup repair would simply pull W2K into the boot menu from the boot.ini

It would be interesting to see how your Detailed view settings look on the VistaBootPRO View Settings page :yesnod:
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Postby Cokeman » Mon Feb 12, 2007 6:14 am

I bought a laptop the other day has Vista Home Premium preloaded. After trying to get many of my programs & hardware to work with it, I finally gave up.
Frustrated I installed XP Pro on the 2nd partion. As soon as it started I realized I had messed up. To late. So i now have a fresh copy of XP Pro & can't boot to Vista. I followed the steps and now I can boot to Vista but no XP Pro option.

Is there a way to add XP Pro into the boot of Vista. I need to use XP until some kind of upgrade comes out for certain programs, & of course drivers for hardware. I have a Dual Boot desktop PC but XP was already installed when I installed Vista. The laptop is reversed. It has an 80gb split with 2 partitions Vista is on C.
XP is on D.
Thanks for any help.

Oh yeah i download the VistaBootPro 3.1, when trying to start it i get a cannot find native library error.
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