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Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

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Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby bljurek » Sun Nov 28, 2010 6:58 pm

I've read numerous posts and tried numerous things I've read with no luck. First, I installed XP on drive D. Second, I installed XP on drive C then upgraded it to Win7. DualbootPro only sees the Win7 OS on drive C. I tried "Add new OS entry" (used legacy because there wasn't an option for XP) and it still boots directly to Win7. Both drives boot directly into windows without giving me an option to select which OS to boot. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

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Re: Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby shreader » Sun Nov 28, 2010 9:08 pm

Hi bljurek :welcome_to_pro:

Did you happen to unplug your Hdd that XP is on when you installed Win7?

You may need to edit your XP boot.ini file as it may think its still Hdd0.
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Re: Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby bljurek » Sun Nov 28, 2010 10:00 pm

Thanks for the reply, shreader. No, I had the XP drive (drive D) connected during the Win7 install on drive C. Here are the contents of the boot.ini file on the XP drive:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I'm not sure exactly what I need to edit here as you suggested. I'm not very experienced at editing system files. I also forgot to mention that drive G is a partition on the Win7 drive. I think it was created during the originai XP install prior to upgrading to Windows 7 on that drive.
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Re: Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby shreader » Sun Nov 28, 2010 10:24 pm

This is how it works:
Grav!ty wrote:rdisk(0) in boot.ini is the same as disk 0 in Disk Management. Partition(1) in the boot.ini is the first partition on the disk and so on.

So if XP is on Disk 0 partition 1 according to Disk Management, the boot.ini should read rdisk(0) partition(1) in both in instances where it is required in boot.ini

If XP is on Disk 1 partition 2 according to Disk Management, the boot.ini should read rdisk(1) partition(2)


Make a copy of your boot.ini first.
Try this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
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
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Re: Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby bljurek » Sun Nov 28, 2010 11:07 pm

I tried the edit to the boot.ini file as suggested and it still boots directly into Windows 7. DualBootPro still only sees the Windows 7 OS as before. The only difference now is that when I booted the drive with the XP OS, I got a missing .dll error. I put the original boot.ini file back on the XP drive and it boots into XP fine. I'm back to my original problem of not being able to choose which OS to boot. I'm still having to change the drive order in the bios to switch between operating systems.
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Re: Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby yeshuas » Mon Nov 29, 2010 12:49 am

Change the boot order in the bios so that it boots to Windows 7.

Copy your "boot.ini, NTLDR and NTDETECT.com" files to the root directory of the Windows 7 Harddrive as it should now be marked as the system disk in Disk Management.

You may have to edit the boot.ini file to match what it sees the XP drive as now.
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Re: Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby bljurek » Mon Nov 29, 2010 2:04 am

where does Windows 7 show "what it sees the XP drive as now"?

I've already tried what you suggested but I tried again with no success.

I copied NTLDR and NTDETECT.com and the boot.ini file to the (Win7 OS) C:\ drive from the XP drive. Here's the boot.ini contents:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I also tried an edited copy of the boot.ini file:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
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

I booted the Windows 7 OS drive and it it booted directly into windows 7. I ran Dualbootpro and it only sees the Windows 7 OS. I added a new XP OS and installed a new bootloader. The Windows 7 drive still boots directly into Windows.
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Re: Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby NT50 » Tue Nov 30, 2010 1:06 pm

shreader and yeshaus

His system partition is G: System reserved. The necessary files for XP need to be located on that partition since it is the system partition
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Re: Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby bljurek » Wed Dec 01, 2010 2:01 am

That did the trick. Thanks for the help, everyone. After placing the boot files on the system drive, it would only boot to XP so I did a repair with the Win 7 disk and the dual boot menu now appears and works. Thanks again.
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Re: Can't dual boot Win7 & XP on different hard drives

Postby yeshuas » Wed Dec 01, 2010 2:07 am

NT50 wrote:shreader and yeshaus

His system partition is G: System reserved. The necessary files for XP need to be located on that partition since it is the system partition

Missed that Jeff, thank you for catching it ^*^
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