"AJR" wrote in message
...
Tons of advice - all that is necessary is reinstall Vista from withn XP
(period),

BTW "...Sounds like good practice, but the reality is different ..." -
no it is reality!!!

I had Vista installed, I wanted XP installed, on a separate hard drive, as
Vista does not play nicely with MinGW32, so I wanted both.

Vista was already installed, I wanted XP too. I still want my existing Vista
installation, as otherwise I have alot of applications to reinstall.

If I had unplugged my Vista drive before installing XP then replugged it
back in after wards everything would have been fine. Then I could just
choose which OS I want to boot from BIOS.

Thats the reality of the situation. You maybe right in that I may have to
reinstall Vista, but it would be great if that was not so and some solution.

Cheers,

Aaron

"Mick Murphy" wrote in message
news
Apparently you have to try mbr repair a few times until it takes

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp

And something for you to have a read of!

Its consistantly saying "Startup Repair could not detect a problem".

Its still saying "Error loading operating system"

Aaron

I cannot address "unplugging the Vista drive..." since I have no expereince
in that route - both drives, to boot from BIOS, would have to be designated
active.

As you probaly know, XP uses Boot.ini as a DOS boot manager while Vista use
BCD Store via WinPE. For duial booting - XP is (Oldest OS) is installed
first - Vista is installed via XP and place files associated with its boot
manager on the XP partition and modifires boot.ini to provide the OS boot
option.

Usually a third party utility such as VistaBootPro provides a solution.
Another option may be BCDedit.exe. Microsoft's command line utility to
modify BCD Store. Check the follofwing site:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/Window...x#BKMK_bcdedit





"Aaron Gray" wrote in message
...
"AJR" wrote in message
...
Tons of advice - all that is necessary is reinstall Vista from withn XP
(period),

BTW "...Sounds like good practice, but the reality is different ..." -
no it is reality!!!

I had Vista installed, I wanted XP installed, on a separate hard drive, as
Vista does not play nicely with MinGW32, so I wanted both.

Vista was already installed, I wanted XP too. I still want my existing
Vista installation, as otherwise I have alot of applications to reinstall.

If I had unplugged my Vista drive before installing XP then replugged it
back in after wards everything would have been fine. Then I could just
choose which OS I want to boot from BIOS.

Thats the reality of the situation. You maybe right in that I may have to
reinstall Vista, but it would be great if that was not so and some
solution.

Cheers,

Aaron

In article ,
"Aaron Gray" wrote:

Vista was already installed, I wanted XP too. I still want my existing Vista
installation, as otherwise I have alot of applications to reinstall.

So re installing Vista deletes your APPs.
Oh my, I'll stick to my lovely intelligent MacOS.

In article ,
"Aaron Gray" wrote:

Installing XP on a second hard drive has clobbered Vista on the primary
drive.

From what I read you should be happy.

Quite a something that one version of Windows destroys another.

This may be what you are looking for to help load both XP and Vista.

http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing...tibooting.html

Boot from an additional hard disk drive. Acronis® OS Selector enables you to
set the disk order so you can boot from any hard drive you select.

Insert a bootable CD/DVD and it will automatically be detected and displayed
as a multiboot option by Acronis® OS Selector.

Detect multiple operating systems that became unbootable due to some
accidental reasons with Acronis® OS Selector detection tool.

Support up to 100 of any known operating systems including Windows XP and
Linux on a single PC.
Install several versions of Windows on a single partition. Operating systems
with the same folder names (e.g. C:\Program Files) on one partition are
supported.

Install and boot an operating system from any partition of any hard disk.

Protect multi-boot OSes and setup with a password.

Hide operating systems and partitions.

Clone OS installation as a back-up.

Repartition your system for a new OS installation.

Boot viruses protection included.

"Pirate chaser" wrote in message
...
In article ,
"Aaron Gray" wrote:

Installing XP on a second hard drive has clobbered Vista on the primary
drive.

From what I read you should be happy.

Quite a something that one version of Windows destroys another.

Hi Aaron,

Did you managed to restore your windows?
I'm having the same problem and i have no idea how to fix this...

Thanks

Pedro

"Aaron Gray" wrote:

Installing XP on a second hard drive has clobbered Vista on the primary
drive.

I do not have my Vista DVD with me and am wondering the easiest way to
recover Vista ?

I obviously have a XP CD with me, and am hoping that I can get away with out
having to redownload a Vista ISO from MSDN Subscriptions.

Any help welcomed,

Aaron