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VBP: Problem with active partitions [workaround found]

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VBP: Problem with active partitions [workaround found]

Postby StoneCut » Thu Nov 23, 2006 11:15 pm

Hi there !

This seems like a very friendly community. I hope you can help me. I have the same problem as many people (XP not recognized) and I think I may have tracked down the cause but haven't found a solution yet ...

My story:
I had XP installed and then went on to install Vista hoping for a dual-boot system. I booted from the Vista media and installed into an empty primary Partition ("E" under XP) on the same drive as my XP system (this is a notebook with only one harddrive). All went fine, unfortunately my XP installation was not added to the Vista Bootmanager. I then tried VistaBootPro but it hasn't been able to help me so far.

My partition layout is: recovery partition - xp - data - vista
*All* except the recovery partition are primary partitions. Look here:
Image
Image


So, since my XP partition shows up as "D" in Vista I set up VBP to add a "Legacy Windows" install with a drive letter of "D" (actually I tried all) but it simply would not boot. Telling me my boot.ini was corrupt and ntdetect could not load.

However, as soon as I set my XP partition as active in Vista drive manager I can boot just fine into XP. If I then set the vista partition active again in XP and I can boot back into Vista. So I know that my boot.ini is correct and my VBP settings were correct since I tried all combinations and none worked.

My conclusion is that I need a bootmanager that can switch the active partition in order to fix my problem :/

Something else I noticed: I know that there should be a /BOOT folder on my XP installation - but it isn't. It's only on my Vista partition. Can anybody help me ?
Last edited by StoneCut on Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:03 am, edited 1 time in total.
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Postby StoneCut » Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:02 am

Ok, I fixed my own problem in a rather unconventional way ...

I copied boot.ini, msdos.sys (if you have it), ntdetect.com and ntldr from my XP partition to my vista partition.Next I added an entry for a legacy system (XP) and pointed it to "C".
Works fine now.

Others might try this if nothing else works for them
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Postby jbullard » Fri Nov 24, 2006 1:27 am

StoneCut,

Welcome to PROnetworks and when you get a chance stop by our <a href="http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/viewforum.php?f=32">Introduction Area</a>.

As for your problem, I just went through the same scenario yesterday. The only differencs was that XP was added to my boot menu, but in XP the Vista drive was showing as Inactive. Once I made that partition Active I was not able to boot into either one. I then copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM into my Vista drive, did a fixboot/fixmbr with the XP Disk and was able to get into XP. I then had to pop in my Vista DVD and use it to repair the Vista bootloader. After that, I was able to boot into either one.

It seems like you should be able to do the same thing. If you are up for the challenge I would suggest trying it out. It is kinda tricky, but it is just a matter of labeling that partition as active, reinstalling the XP boot secotr, and then reinstalling the Vista boot sector.

If you do try it, let us know how it turns out. And I am glad to hear you got this solved.

Jason
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Postby StoneCut » Fri Nov 24, 2006 6:13 pm

Thanks for your reply.

Your suggestion sounds like another good way to fix it. I've decided to leave it as is, though, since the two additional files on my Vista partition really don't bother me and I will always have a failback system this way, too. I'm one of those "Never fix a running system" types when it comes to my notebook ;)

Sorting the Boot issue and getting the OrbiCam to work properly under Vista was challenging enough ... now if only I knew why MediaCenter won't find any DVB-T stations or my regular viewer software destroys my loudspeakers I'd be happy. But I'm rambling ;)
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Re: VBP: Problem with active partitions [workaround found]

Postby JabbaPapa » Sun Nov 26, 2006 12:38 pm

StoneCut wrote:This seems like a very friendly community.
:yesnod: ^*^

Welcome to PROnetworks !!!
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