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After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

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After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby FlavioB » Wed Sep 29, 2010 3:45 pm

Hello people.

I was following the guide to install Windows XP Home on a notebook which has Windows 7 preinstalled (install-windows-xp-in-dual-boot-with-pre-installed-windows-7-t112568.html)

I got to the point where I installed DualBootPRO and after installing the bootloader, I wanted to run "Diagnostics" as per the above guide. At that point, I got .NET errors popping up, which led me to restart the system.
While rebooting, *no boot menu* appeared at all, and also the system started with Windows 7.
I installed DualBootPRO in Windows 7, tried to manually add the Windows XP entry, but somewhat went wrong. My actual layout looks like:

C:\ - Windows 7
E:\ - System Reserved (partition which is hidden, to which I gave the first available drive letter)
F:\ - Windows XP

Thus, I copied "boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com" from E:\ to F:\, ran again DualBootPRO and rebooted: no boot menu, still Windows 7 booting.

This is how boot.ini looks like:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Any help will be appreciated.

TIA
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Re: After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby Grav!ty » Wed Sep 29, 2010 4:18 pm

Please post a screen shot of disk management so that we can see what your entire drive structure is.

Did XP setup complete and did you boot directly to XP after installation?

DualBootPRO needs .NET 2.00 to run correctly so you need to download and install that. You should have got a prompt to install it when your were running the executable for DBP.
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Re: After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby FlavioB » Thu Sep 30, 2010 6:37 am

Hello Grav!ty and thanks for replying.

Here the screenshot: http://yfrog.com/b5partitionsp

XP Setup completed without any problems and it booted directly to XP (I had time to complete all the driver installations and Microsoft Updates, rebooting to XP).
.NET 2.0 has been installed, but as I already mentioned, when I chose to run "Diagnostics" from DualBootPRO, .NET errors came up and I had to close DualBootPRO. Even after closing and reopening it, nothing would work (.NET errors whenever I clicked on menu items). I thought, it should have still done what it had to (install the bootloader), thus I rebooted and now I can boot only to W7!

Thanks for your help.
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Re: After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby Grav!ty » Thu Sep 30, 2010 10:21 am

Have you installed DBP on Windows 7 and does it work from there?

What version of DBP are you using?

What I recommend is that you delete the XP partition from within Windows 7 and then recreate it and format it, then give it a name so that you recognize it from XP setup and reinstall XP. Make sure you have .NET 2.00 available to install on your fresh XP install and delete the old boot.ini, ntldr and NTDETECT.COM from the System Reserved partition.

If that fails for some or other reason we can take it from there. Please answer my two questions above.
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Re: After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby FlavioB » Thu Sep 30, 2010 11:42 am

Grav!ty wrote:Have you installed DBP on Windows 7 and does it work from there?

Yes I installed it also on Windows 7 and it was working, if by "working" we agree on "software running without troubles". I did the bootloader install from there too, but when rebooting, no boot menu shows up: it simply starts Windows 7.
What version of DBP are you using?

Version 1.1.0.0 (bought it yesterday)
What I recommend is that you delete the XP partition from within Windows 7 and then recreate it and format it, then give it a name so that you recognize it from XP setup and reinstall XP. Make sure you have .NET 2.00 available to install on your fresh XP install and delete the old boot.ini, ntldr and NTDETECT.COM from the System Reserved partition.

If that fails for some or other reason we can take it from there. Please answer my two questions above.

Oh man, is there *really* no other workaround but re-installing?
What do you think about simply booting with XP CD, then do a "Repair" of the actual XP installation?

Thanks for your help, I'd appreciate if we could sort it out without the whole reinstallation.
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Re: After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby Grav!ty » Thu Sep 30, 2010 12:01 pm

When you say DBP is "working" in Windows 7, are you still getting the .NET errors in Windows 7?
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Re: After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby FlavioB » Thu Sep 30, 2010 12:09 pm

Grav!ty wrote:When you say DBP is "working" in Windows 7, are you still getting the .NET errors in Windows 7?

No, actually I get no error at all.

PS: if you want to and would have time, I'm on Skype (I'd give you my contact via PM).
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Re: After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby Grav!ty » Thu Sep 30, 2010 12:52 pm

We can fix your dual boot from Windows 7 then. Go to the Operating Systems page of DualBootPRO and add a New OS>Legacy entry, give it a name like XP Home or whatever and then allocate the drive letter you see in disk management.

Reboot and you should have a dual boot menu. If you get a ntldr error then try partition(3) in your boot.ini and remember to change both copies of it - the one in the Systems partition and the copy you made to the XP partition.
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Re: After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby FlavioB » Thu Sep 30, 2010 2:17 pm

Grav!ty wrote:We can fix your dual boot from Windows 7 then. Go to the Operating Systems page of DualBootPRO and add a New OS>Legacy entry, give it a name like XP Home or whatever and then allocate the drive letter you see in disk management.

Reboot and you should have a dual boot menu. If you get a ntldr error then try partition(3) in your boot.ini and remember to change both copies of it - the one in the Systems partition and the copy you made to the XP partition.

I owe you a couple of beers!!! ^*^
You got me to get it working, great!

Here's what I was doing wrong: after doing the above steps (in fact, I already manually added the XP entry yesterday, before actually posting for help), I wasn't simply rebooting, but instead I was going to "System Bootloader" and installed the bootloader again (with "Vista or Windows 7" and "All Drives" parameters). That was the wrong part, I guess.

Many Many Thanks!!!
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Re: After installing XP on Windows 7 notebook, no boot menu

Postby Grav!ty » Thu Sep 30, 2010 2:21 pm

Glad you got it working ^*^
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