Technology, Support, and News Forum

[Codger Profile]

After establishing a nice clean Vista on my D: drive using dual boot and then installing all my software and moving all my stuff across, I now want to boot directly into Vista so that I can format drive C: to use it for backups. After changing the boot sequence I quickly discovered that drive C: was missing some boot files. Hence VBP.

I have tried the System Bootloader, selecting drive D: (the drive letters seem to be mapping correctly) but in spite of a confirmation message nothing changes. I have not dared to use the force option because I am not an "advanced user" and I have suffered enough pain this last week or two to last me a long time!

I see that on the install dvd there is bootmgr and a folder 'boot' containing what looks like useful stuff. Should I just copy them into the root of D: ?

Btw, I am very impressed by the massive amount of support provided here. I seem to have spent most of my adult life trawling through it!
tia

[Grav!ty Profile]

Hi Codger, thanks for the compliments and welcome to PROnetworks

Although your situation is not exactly the same as that in the guide below, you will get a good idea of what is necessary to restore your boot to Vista: reformatted-and-reinstalled-xp-lost-boot-to-vista-t84209.html

Essentially you need to copy the folder Boot and the file bootmgr from the XP drive to the Vista drive and then reinstall the Vista bootloader>System Partition using the Bootloader page of VistaBootPRO. Once you've done that and rebooted your system, you will probably have to delete the XP entry using the Manage OS Entries page.

Another alternative is to run a startup repair as described in the guide above, after formatting the XP partition.

All the above assumes your Vista drive/partition is now showing up as the drive/partition tagged (System) in Disk Management.

[Codger Profile]

This is what I did:
Firstly, I attempted to copy the files across as you suggested. They all copied OK except BCD which was "in use by another program".

Then I attempted the repair via the dvd. None of my three drives was listed so I looked at "Load Drivers" (?) which was very confusing so I backed out of there and hit "next" without selecting a drive, fully expecting to be bounced out. However, the repair process went ahead. The repair log made no mention of boot issues but did say that there was no partition table. What had it done to my system?

The re-boot went straight into Vista (I had previously changed the boot sequence to force the dvd boot). I then changed the boot sequence back again and my dual boot options appeared as before. Cool!

My impression is that I can now format driveC: when I am ready and then get on with my life. Am I right?

[Grav!ty Profile]

You can check that by confirming that the file bootmgr and the folder Boot are now on your Vista drive AND that the Vista drive is tagged (System) in Disk Management

[Codger Profile]

Yes, already did that. I had already copied all the files across except BCD (as I said) and I have confirmed that BCD is now there also.
However, I am surprised that you say "AND that the Vista drive is not tagged (System) in Disk Management". Surely, this needs to be my system drive if I re-format drive C:? . . . . Oh! I see what you mean. In Disk Management - courtesy 'Virtual Disk Service' - C: is D: and vice versa. Gosh, my brain hurts!

Thanks for your fantastic support. I shall be making a feature on our Club Website about you and VistaBootPro - even though I didn't actually use it to solve my problem.

[Grav!ty Profile]

My Bad...the Vista drive needs to be tagged System

I'm going to edit my post above so that others aren't given the wrong info

[Codger Profile]

Hi, Folks! Yes, it's me again.
I can hardly believe that it's three weeks since I was posting here about booting from drive D: and clearing my C: drive. But I still have the problem - or at least an equivalent problem. Vista wouldn't let me do what I wanted to and after two weeks of terror learning about Vista and nearly losing everything several times I made a new install of XP on drive D: and re-established my applications and data there. My regular backups are running sweetly again (to drive H:) and I am now ready yet again to clear down drive C: .

However! The C: drive is still tagged "boot" and even though the bios points to D: it refers to C: for boot info. If I disconnect C: I get a bootmgr error. I have copied the boot folder plus boot.ini, ntdetect and bootmgr from C: to D: but it still looks to C: for boot info (probably a pointer in boot.ini?). Btw, I cannot boot C: it justs hangs on a blank screen. boot.ini looks like this:-
[boot loader]
timeout=1
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer

I suspect that multi(0) is a hangover from dual boot and does not need to be present to boot directly, and I think that rdisk(1) points to the D: drive but I daren't make any changes for fear that I lose the ability to boot completely (given that C: will not boot). I did think that I might get C: bootable first by disconnecting D: and running a repair from the install disc, but I fear that it might fail and at the same time interfere with booting from D: which would leave me in the S&S.

I don't have Vista any more, but will VistaBootPRO sort this? Any ideas anyone?

[Grav!ty Profile]

The drive/partition of the operating system you boot to will always be denoted Boot in disk management. What is important is which drive/partition is tagged (System) as that is where your boot system files are located.

If you post a screenshot of your disk management and indicate what OS is where we should be able to help you fix your boot.ini

Just for clarity, are you now booting two instances of XP?

[Codger Profile]

Diskman image attached.

diskman.jpg (18.8 KiB) Viewed 3908 times

Drive C: is connected to sata1, drive D: to sata2.
The bios is set to boot from D:
Drive C; was my original main drive before I installed Vista on D: via dual boot.
Using the Install Disk I then formatted D: and installed XP there, so both drives should contain a system (XP).

Drive C: has Boot (folder), autoexec.bat, boot.ini, bootmgr, config.sys, hiberfil.sys, IO.SYS, MSDOS.SYS, NTDETECT.COM and ntldr.
Drive D: has Boot (folder), boot.ini, bootmgr, NTDETECT.COM, ntldr and pagefile.sys

I had expected that disk 0 would have been the drive that was connected to sata1, but I see that it is in fact the drive that the bios is booting from.

I hope the foregoing makes sense. tia

[Grav!ty Profile]

So you have XP installed on both drive C and drive D?

Then your boot.ini should read as follows:

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 1" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional 2" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer

It's best to edit the boot.ini from right click My Computer>Properties>Advanced>Startup and Recovery>Settings>Edit and then remember to save the changes you make before exiting notepad. Also, you must exit all those pages I've mentioned before the changes you make will take effect. Once you reboot you should see the new menu item "Microsoft Windows XP Professional 2"

Note I changed the timeout to 10 seconds so that you can see the boot menu.