A Digital Age Deserves A Digital Leader

XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Forum rules
Please start your own topic for support with problems you experience. Even if it appears to be exactly the same as someone else's problem, system configurations differ significantly. Thank you.

It may take our support staff between 24-48 hours to respond to your problem. We are a small business and strive to answer your questions as soon as possible. We appreciate your patience.

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby charlesn56 » Tue Jan 11, 2011 4:56 pm

One thing that I don't know if it will be a problem or not is. After I installed Windows 7, in order to keep my XP OS from clearing System Restore on my Windows 7 OS. I changed the registry of my XP OS to hide the partition from Windows 7. Will this be a problem with DualBoot Pro ?


Thanks for your help,
PRO Level 2
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat May 08, 2010 5:55 pm

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby Grav!ty » Tue Jan 11, 2011 5:07 pm

If you can still see both entries on the boot menu and boot to each OS then that shouldn't be a problem.
Image

"The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are." - Niccolo Machiavelli
PROfessional Member
User avatar
Posts: 15790
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 5:22 am
Real Name: Graham

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby charlesn56 » Tue Jan 11, 2011 6:14 pm

As in one of my last post. When I reboot after completing the tasks that you wanted me too. My computer auto boots to Windows 7. No boot options come up. I have disk images to work with and return to before I installed DualBoot Pro. Should I start over, and change my XP registry back, and then reinstall DualBoot Pro preforming the task that you set-out earlier ?

Thanks,
PRO Level 2
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat May 08, 2010 5:55 pm

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby Grav!ty » Wed Jan 12, 2011 12:20 am

Yes, change your XP registry back and then first try to add a legacy entry to the boot menu with Operating Systems page of DualBootPRO and using the drive letter allocated per the Windows 7 disk management. After that again go to the Bootloader page of DBP and reinstall the Win 7 bootloader>All Drives. Reboot and see what the result is.
Image

"The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are." - Niccolo Machiavelli
PROfessional Member
User avatar
Posts: 15790
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 5:22 am
Real Name: Graham

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby charlesn56 » Wed Jan 12, 2011 7:46 pm

Graham:

Still no luck. Has this ever worked before ? Still boots straight to Windows 7, no options nothing.

1.Boot Folder and the file file bootmgr was not on the the root of the XP drive/partition. So I copy them from the Windows 7 installation and pasted them there.

2.On the operating systems page of DualBootPRO. Windows 7 OS was the only one listed. And it was set to default and could not be changed.

3. After installing bootloader, I tried to remove the two files that I put in the root of the XP drive/partition while still booted in XP. It would not let me remove the boot folder. But if I did remove the file bootmgr, then when I would reboot it could not find bootmgr and would stall (crash) and would not boot any farther.

4. After booting straight to Windows 7. It would not let me see the two files (Boot Folder and the file bootmgr) on the XP partition, to remove them.

I know that this is a great program with great reviews, but I am sure having problems.

Charles
PRO Level 2
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat May 08, 2010 5:55 pm

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby Grav!ty » Wed Jan 12, 2011 8:44 pm

EDIT: See note in red below :whistle

Hey Charles, none of this is rocket surgery. Here are the basics:

1. The boot system files for both operating systems must be on the root of the drive tagged (System) as per disk management. For XP these files are ntldr, boot.ini and NTDETECT.COM. For Windows 7 these files are the folder Boot plus all contents and the file bootmgr. To see those items you need to have folder options set not to hide protected operating system files and show hidden files and folders.

2. There needs to be valid entries for both operating systems in the BCD (boot configuration data store). This you can check from the Operating Systems page of DualBootPRO and make the necessary additions there. The default OS entry will show up in blue and any other valid OS entry will show up in black. Red entries indicate invalid entries and should be deleted by selecting the entry and then clicking the red cross on the right.

3. Once you have steps 1 and steps 2 taken care of, you need to re-install the Windows 7 bootloader by going to the System Bootloader page of DualBootPRO and selecting Windows 7 bootloader and selecting All Drives and then click Install Bootloader at the bottom of the page.

4. Reboot and test your boot menu items.

If the above does not work (and please do not vary a single item of what I have posted) let me know and go to the Boot Information page of DualBootPRO, select Overview and then right click anywhere on the page and Select All then Copy and paste that information here.

This has worked millions of times Charles and there does not look like there is anything at all about your drive configuration that should be causing any problems...provided it remains as it was in the screen shot of disk management that you posted earlier. Of you did hide a drive, then please unhide it.

OMFG - I see you have XP installed on FAT 32 - you need to FIRST convert that partition that XP is on to NTFS - See How to convert a FAT volume or a FAT32 volume to NTFS.
Image

"The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are." - Niccolo Machiavelli
PROfessional Member
User avatar
Posts: 15790
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 5:22 am
Real Name: Graham

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby charlesn56 » Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:40 pm

Graham:

Thank you for your continued help. I did convert my Fat 32 drive to NTFS. Then the following:

Grav!ty wrote:1. The boot system files for both operating systems must be on the root of the drive tagged (System) as per disk management. For XP these files are ntldr, boot.ini and NTDETECT.COM. For Windows 7 these files are the folder Boot plus all contents and the file bootmgr. To see those items you need to have folder options set not to hide protected operating system files and show hidden files and folders.


These files are all there, in both location.

Grav!ty wrote:2. There needs to be valid entries for both operating systems in the BCD (boot configuration data store). This you can check from the Operating Systems page of DualBootPRO and make the necessary additions there. The default OS entry will show up in blue and any other valid OS entry will show up in black. Red entries indicate invalid entries and should be deleted by selecting the entry and then clicking the red cross on the right.


Before I do anything with DualBootPRO the following infomation is in the Operating Systems page of DualBootPRO:

There is currently 0 OS(s) installed on your system.
The current boot timeout is: 0
Default OS:

If I click on detail I get the following: I think this is the problem ?
The boot configuration data store could not be opened.
The system cannot find the file specified.


After I place the two files in the root on XP partition. And restart DualBootPRO I get the following information. Windows 7 is the only OS shown in the Operating Systems page of DualBootPRO. The following is the detail of the Boot Information Page. See uploaded file.

Computer still boots to Windows 7, no options.

Charles
DualBoot Pro Detail.png
DualBoot Pro Detail.png (82.62 KiB) Viewed 2673 times
PRO Level 2
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat May 08, 2010 5:55 pm

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby Grav!ty » Thu Jan 13, 2011 6:47 pm

Just follow the steps I gave you now. If there are no entries shown on the Operating Systems page then create them using the drive letters you see from XP.

Let me know how you go after you have completed the 4 steps.
Image

"The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are." - Niccolo Machiavelli
PROfessional Member
User avatar
Posts: 15790
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 5:22 am
Real Name: Graham

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby charlesn56 » Thu Jan 13, 2011 9:29 pm

Graham:

Getting closer- After adding Windows XP and Drive C, Installing boot loader. And then rebooting, Windows Boot Manager comes up. Windows 7 boots great, but if I want to boot XP I get the following message.

File \windows\system32\winload.exe

Status 0xc000000f

Info. The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.

One other thing-
I started out with Win ME, and then upgraded to XP. Don't know if this would cause this problem or not !!
Only have the XP upgrade CD, so I can't install the Installation CD and do a repair like the instruction said on the Windows Boot Manager Window.
I check the XP paratition and system32\winload.exe application is not there. :(
Charles
PRO Level 2
Posts: 24
Joined: Sat May 08, 2010 5:55 pm

Re: XP and Windows 7 Already Installed

Postby Grav!ty » Fri Jan 14, 2011 12:38 am

The winload error could be because of the boot.ini

[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 Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect


Try changing your boot.ini to the above - you can use the legacy editor on the Tools menu item to copy and paste the new info into it and then save it as boot.ini. First save the old boot.ini as something like bootold.ini or something.

If that doesn't work, please post a screen shot of My Computer>C: drive root so that I can see the files that are on there. It may be necessary to delete some of the obsolete Windows ME start up system files.
Image

"The great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances, as though they were realities, and are often more influenced by the things that seem than by those that are." - Niccolo Machiavelli
PROfessional Member
User avatar
Posts: 15790
Joined: Tue Sep 14, 2004 5:22 am
Real Name: Graham

PreviousNext

Return to Windows Boot Problems

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest

cron
cron