Dual Boot Instructions
"DavidG" wrote in message ... G'day, I'm staring at a black screen which says "Error loading Operating System". I'm wondering what went wrong. No matter which way I turn this error message comes up. This why I have such low confidence in dealing with activities like this. It always happens. I faithfully followed instructions, or so I thought. I installed the physical HDD. I booted to Vista and activated the new hdd. I created a primary partition, I named the volume WinXP and assigned the drive letter X. Don't bother with drive letters. Think drives and partitions. Assigning it a drive letter, you're telling Vista you want this partition on this drive to be letter X: and it stores the information in the Registry. This information only applies to this installation of Vista. Booting up in XP, it will assign drive letters in the order that the drives are detected, not by what Vista has in it's Registry. If you assign a partition x on this drive y to Z:. in XP and reboot to Vista the drive letters will be what you set it to in Vista X: and not what you set it to in XP, Z: Same with setup, it will assign drive letters in the order drives/partitions were detected, which is why there is no X:. X: only exist for Vista, because you told it this partition on this drive you want to be called X:. I then rebooted the machine and inserted the XP CD. It booted to setup and I moved through the setup. When XP then went to reboot, as it rebooted, up came the error message. I have tried going through the process a number of times. One of the quirky things I noticed when going through this the first time (installing XP) was that when it offered me what drive to load it to, it didn't have X it offered me E. I thought that was curious. Anyway, what could I do there is no option to change it to X. I'm suspecting that XP has installed it has corrupted the Vista installation. But it seems the XP install is also corrupt. The only thing that works on my computer now is the CD/DVD drive. I have rebooted off it and I've selected a slow format of the E drive in a hope that may fix something. The only way I can communicate with the group is by using my laptop. Which is slow and tedious. But at least it works. So I guess I have gone to prove that no matter how much instruction you have, it ain't no guarantee. There you go, any wisdom would be appreciated. Regards David G. |
Dual Boot Instructions
Hi R. C.
Is there an echo in here? It seems I've said all this at least a couple of times already. :^{ Before saying anything about the topic, I need to say this. To employ a euphemism in this situation, I have a condition that affects my short term memory. I'm sorry this has been a frustrating experience for you. I can only admire your patience and perserverance in a difficult situation. You have the patience of Job. I applaud you for this. Thanks. Both HDDs are functional. 1) with XP, 2) with Vista. I ended up reinstalling Vista, (after installing XP). It seemed to automatically come up with "Earlier version of Windows" and "Windows Vista" as alternatively when booting. The only thing remaining seems to be the system restore points being deleted by XP. I have gone to kb926185. In method 1 my path runs out at MountedDevices, I don't have the \Offline subkey. It mentions this further down the article. My confidence is not high with registry editing. Do I need to worry about restore points if I systematically backup my data to external HDDs? If it is any consolation to you I have copied all your postings along with other postings and am making it into a manual of instructions on this whole topic. Thank you once again R.C. Things seem to be running OK, (aside from restore points). "R. C. White" wrote: Hi, David. Then the issue will be how do I have both of these hdds connected to the m'board and not have XP corrupt the Vista bootloader? But that's the point that I've been trying to get across! WinXP Setup WILL "corrupt" the Vista boot SECTOR. And then Vista's Startup Repair will un-corrupt it. The boot SECTOR is not the bootLOADER. Vista's bootloader is the file "bootmgr". The boot sector is not a file. You can't see, copy, delete or otherwise handle it with Windows Explorer or any other of the usual Windows tools; only a special utility can do this, such as bootsect.exe or DiskPart.exe - or the Setup.exe that installs Windows. And no matter whether you have one HDD, or 2 or 7 connected, only ONE will hold the boot sector that matters. There may well be other boot sectors on other HDDs, but only ONE at a time has any effect on what happens. WinXP Setup has NO IDEA about VISTA! So it bulldozes right over the Vista boot sector. On the next reboot, when the system finds the HDD currently designated as the boot device and looks at the first physical sector, it finds the partition table for that HDD and sees that the first partition is Active (bootable) so it reads the first physical sector of that partition. That is the WinXP boot sector so it simply loads and runs WinXP. Even if you have 3 HDDs connected, Setup.exe will overwrite only ONE boot sector - the one that is in the System Partition at the time the computer is turned on or rebooted. Partitions on other HDDs don't matter at all. Who cares if the 3rd HDD also has a bootable partition, if the BIOS instructs the system to boot from the first HDD? Let's stop here and absorb this. So far, we've not looked for WinXP or Vista or any other Windows or Linux or any other OS. So far, the computer is just trying to discover the hardware, wake it up, and get enough instructions to start looking for ANY OS. Each breadcrumb leads to the next one where the system gains a little more intelligence. By the time it gets the boot sector code loaded into memory and starts executing those few bytes of code, the system is able to follow the instruction to find a file named NTLDR, load it, and start executing its instruction. NTLDR has instructions for finding NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini - but it knows absolutely nothing about Vista's file named bootmgr, much less about Vista's Root-level folder named \Boot. That's the reason for the newest-OS-last Golden Rule. When that rule is violated, we no longer can simply (1) install WinXP, (2) install Vista and let it create the dual-boot in the same System Partition that WinXP was using. Now, since we violated the Golden rule, the complete install sequence becomes more complex: (1) Install Vista (no dual-boot menu gets created because there's no other OS installed); on the next reboot, the boot sector says nothing about NTLDR, of course, but looks for bootmgr. (2) Install WinXP - which will "corrupt" (your word, not mine) Vista's boot sector by completely overwriting it; on the next reboot, the system ignores bootmgr and follows the new instructions to load NTLDR, et seq; (3) Install Vista again - or at least, run its Repair Startup function - so that it can once again write the Vista-version boot sector, which will look for bootmgr rather than NTLDR. Vista's Setup DOES know about the older WinXP, so when it detects WinXP on any connected HDD, it will add the {ntldr} entry in its BCD. On the next reboot, the system will follow the boot sector's instruction and load bootmgr - which will include in its menu the {ntldr} option to boot the "Earlier...Windows". If you choose Earlier, bootmgr will load NTLDR, turn over control to that, and get out of the way so that WinXP can be loaded. Is there an echo in here? It seems I've said all this at least a couple of times already. :^{ figuring if I went with the simple install i.e. disconnect Vista sata from m'board and install XP that way, which was suggested at the first posting on this thread. That's still an option. But it still means that you will have to reset your BIOS each time to switch to the other OS. Good luck. This whole job SHOULD be done in less than a couple of hours, maybe a lot less. Less time than it took me to type it all out - again. Keep us posted on your progress. RC -- R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX Microsoft Windows MVP Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100 "DavidG" wrote in message ... Further to my last posting, I've been able to re-install Vista, back to square one. I endeavoured to use the repair function with Vista install, but it failed to repair the corrupt boot sector. So Vista advised me that it now takes the old corrupted install and removes it to a Windows.old folder. So now i have Vista with a lot of programs and updates to reinstall as well as a new hdd with nothing but a corrupt Win XP installation on it. I'm now figuring if I went with the simple install i.e. disconnect Vista sata from m'board and install XP that way, which was suggested at the first posting on this thread. Then the issue will be how do I have both of these hdds connected to the m'board and not have XP corrupt the Vista bootloader? That's it for now, Thanks David G. "R. C. White" wrote: Hi, David. I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the backup There are at least two reasons for using multiple partitions, and this is the second. The first, of course, is to allow dual-booting by putting each OS on a separate partition. The second is so that we can put our data files in a "neutral" partition with NO OS at all. Then, when we want or need to delete or update an OS, we can completely reformat Drive "Vista (V:)" (for example) while our data remains safe and secure on Drive "Data (D:)". Then, when we've reinstalled Vista or Win7 on V:, and reinstalled our applications that use the data, we can immediately access the data without going through the Restore process. After all, Word documents, for example, don't care whether we are running WinXP or Vista or Win7, so long as Word is installed in whichever OS we are using. We can easily start a letter while running WinXP in the morning, then finish the same letter in Vista in the afternoon. Just tell Word in each OS to use the same drive\folder for its data file. When you install your new 750 GB HD for WinXP, make the WinXP partition just 50 GB. IF you've already created a single 750 GB partition, then either Shrink it by 700 GB or delete it and start over. Then create a 700 GB partition to use for your data. Move all your Word and Excel documents, all your family photos, all your music and video files...all your data... to this Data volume. Adjust these sizes and numbers to fit your own needs, of course. It's the idea that is important, not the specific numbers. Good luck. And let us know about your progress. RC -- R. C. White, CPA San Marcos, TX Microsoft Windows MVP Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8064.0206) in Win7 Ultimate x64 RC 7100 "DavidG" wrote in message ... G'day R.C. Thanks for your advice. Sorry about the email. You haven't studied Disk Management nearly enough! :^{ You are right, but I will have by the time I finish this exercise. I could sit here and write a whole lot of "valid" reasons why I haven't completed this job yet, but I guess we all have busy lives. So I won't. I wish to thank you for being so patient and knowledgable, also the other contributers to this post. The last post on this thread will be me saying "I've completed the Job". And maybe I'll have more to comment on then. I'm endeavouring to back up all my data, but I've had issues with the backup software, so I'm in conversations with the software vendor. Anyway, that's just a temp distraction. I will get there. Thanks for your support, Regards from down under, David You are looking only at the Volume List, which is at the top of the window, by default. Maybe you haven't Maximized the Disk Management window and cannot see the Graphical View at the bottom of the window. The Graphical View doesn't bother to put column headings, but the left-most column shows the PHYSICAL DISK number, not the partition (volume) letter. It appears that my Disk 0 has the System Partition and Boot Volume as well as other things. You should, at any one time, see ONE System Partition and ONE Boot Volume - and they may or may not be the SAME volume. Are they, in your system? But, at another time, when you dual-boot into a different OS (WinXP?), the System Partition should remain the same volume, but a different volume will have the Boot status - and the volume that was labeled Boot before will now be "just another volume". Well, it will no longer the Boot volume, but if it was the System Partition (in Vista?), it still should have that status. Remember the "Y": It stands on a single leg (the one System Partition) and can branch to any one of multiple Boot Volumes - but only one at a time will be the current boot volume. I have downloaded VistaBootPro 3.3 is that all I need to download? Is EasyBCD any better or they both do the same job? You haven't made any reference to these utilities. Aside from that I think I'm just about ready to go, ("good to go"). Thanks again for your help mate (in the U.S. I think you say "buddy"). Much appreciated. I've used the third-party BCD managers just enough to know that I prefer to use BCDEdit. Yes, it's clumsy and inscrutable and "techy", but I got familiar with it during the Vista beta. But you shouldn't need any 3rd-party programs. Just make up your mind and go for it. You started this thread more than a week ago and you've received nearly 2 dozen replies from nearly a dozen helpers. And you haven't actually tried anything yet. You could read about "how to ride a bicycle" for years but, until you actually get on the bike, you still won't understand what the book is trying to tell you. And, until you actually try to partition and format that new drive, you won't really understand Disk Management. You'll understand it better after you've "crashed your bike" a couple of times, recovered from the crash, and tried again. Please don't send me an email about this. Netiquette frowns on email responses to newsgroup posts. In email, only two parties can benefit; here in the newsgroup, others can participate and learn or help, too. If my answer is wrong or incomplete, someone here can correct or complete it. If I give you bad advice in email, you're just stuck with it. Good luck, Mate! RC "DavidG" wrote in message ... G'day RC, You sound just like an Aussie. To matters partitioning, In disk management my computer shows Disk 0 (C:) as 465GB NTFS (with Vista) It is healthy with (System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition) Disk 1 Storage (D:) as 698GB NTFS (just data storage) Healthy (Primary Partition). |
Dual Boot Instructions
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