Greetings all,
I have a computer that came preinstalled with Windows Vista. I came to dislike Vista and wanted to do a dual boot with XP. I partitioned and installed XP Pro SP-2 to the created partition. XP worked fine, so to get back into Vista also, I ran the recovery console from the Vista DVD that came with the computer and this just trashed the bootloader and made both Windows XP and Vista unbootable. So I had to reinstall Windows XP. Right now I am in Windows XP which is fully intact, and my Windows Vista directory structure is fully intact after fooling around with a number of recovery tools. However I can only boot into XP. I tried to reinstall the BCD (Vista) bootloader with Easy BCD but it just reboots into XP, with the regular old school 'legacy' boot loader. I tried running Vista Boot Pro also. But nothing gets me into the Vista boot loader. I really don't want to use the tools on the Vista CD to get the BCD boot loader working as it really trashed my system the last time, and it has taken some work getting things the way they are right now. If anybody as any advice as to how I can get things working let me know. Thank you, Jacob

This is the boot.ini file that my system loads right now:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(4)\WINDOWS="F***ED UP WINDOWS XP" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="F***ED UP WINDOWS VISTA" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

This is the mess I have in EasyBCD:

There are a total of 7 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 10 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista
Entry #1
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {007c527c-c076-11dc-9dc3-001b77da7471}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR
Entry #2
Name: Drive C
BCD ID: {007c527e-c076-11dc-9dc3-001b77da7471}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR
Entry #3
Name: Drive D
BCD ID: {007c527f-c076-11dc-9dc3-001b77da7471}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR
Entry #4
Name: Drive E
BCD ID: {007c5280-c076-11dc-9dc3-001b77da7471}
Drive: E:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR
Entry #5
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: E:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #6
Name: Windows XP
BCD ID: {007c5283-c076-11dc-9dc3-001b77da7471}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr
Entry #7
Name: Drive D
BCD ID: {007c5284-c076-11dc-9dc3-001b77da7471}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \ntldr

This is the ideal configuration I setup in Vista Boot Pro:

There is currently 3 OS(s) installed on your system.
The current boot timeout is: 10
Default OS: Windows Vista
Entry 1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {default}
Boot Drive: E:
Windows Drive: E:
System Bootloader: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry 2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Windows XP
BCD ID: {007c5283-c076-11dc-9dc3-001b77da7471}
Boot Drive: C:
System Bootloader: \ntldr
Entry 3
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: Drive D
BCD ID: {007c5284-c076-11dc-9dc3-001b77da7471}
Boot Drive: D:
System Bootloader: \ntldr

Repairing the Windows Vista Bootloader - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

That section of the Wiki will help you recover the Vista bootloader. All the instructions along with a downloadable Revoery CD to help you on the way.

Also, I forgot to mention that when I installed Windows XP the partition that Vista was installed on became corrupted somehow. I have since been able to recover it but the drive name assignment does not make any sense really.

The first partition is a recovery partition created by the manufacturer (Toshiba) or some such nonsense. This is hidden and is not assigned a drive letter.

The second partition is the Windows Vista partition, 150 GB. This is now assigned drive letter E:

The third partition is the Windows XP Pro SP-2 partition, 20GB. This is assigned drive letter C:

The fourth partition is an auxilliary partition I created for storing files or for whatever, 20GB also. This is assigned drive letter D:

So the BCD/Vista bootloader is installed to drive E:\Boot\. The legacy boot loader is installed to drive C:\.

Thank you. Jacob


Addendum:

Thank you for the input. I've followed the instructions exactly as they are outlined on the Wiki actually, but it just boots back into the Windows XP bootloader. I think it could have to do with which drive Vista is installed on. My CD-RW does not work under XP so I can't burn the bootable to try it out.

Thank you, Jacob

Troubleshooting Windows XP - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

Read that part of the Wiki for instruction to figuer out what is going on with the whole XP restarting thing. Seems like a file is missing somewhere.

As for the whole cant burn issue. Boot into Vista. There are guides available on this as well. For Vista compatible applications.

Burning ISO Images to a CD or DVD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

Jacob,
If you look in Raul's guide,
http://neosmart.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1203
and note my addendum, you'll see that I installed XP after Vista successfully, but I didn't use the Vista recovery console to fix the MBR, that's far too complicated and open to disaster unless you're like Guru and know exactly what's going on and what's where.
All you need to do is reboot the Vista DVD as if to reinstall, at which point it will give you an option to repair the Vista installation. Just say yes to that option and leave it to its own devices and it will realize that only the MBR is bad and fix it (It warns that you might have to go through the process more than once) Just look at the report it provides when its finished and it will say when it has succcessfully repaired the MBR.
Then you can use EasyBCD to tidy up the mess and make your dual boot neater with the labels you want to assign
The drive letter E is just what XP is calling your Vista partition. You'll probably want to hide it from XP anyway
see my first post here and folllow the links contained http://neosmart.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1186
to see why.
When you boot back into Vista it will have a whole different set of letters it's calling everything. Now is the time, before you start installing new apps on XP to go into disk manager on both boots and tidy up the disc letter assignments to a scheme which makes sense to you. You can change anything you like on each boot, except for the active partition and the booted partition (if they're not the same as in my case when in Vista)

Thanks for the input. I'll read this Wiki over again. Perhaps I missed something. It seems like EasyBCD should install the bootloader but it does not. As for the burning thing, I know how to burn an ISO image, my burner is just not compatible with XP and I've not been able to get back into Vista thus far.


Addendum:


Thanks. Running the repair from the DVD crashed my computer the last time I tried it, so I'm somewhat reluctant to try it again. Perhaps I will try it again anyway, just for the sake of recklessness. I appreciate the help.

Hi Jacob, welcome to NST.

Your problem is that for some odd reason your active partitions are being switched around. All boot files should be on either E: or C:

Use a bootable partition manager like Acronis or GParted and set the *Vista* partition as active (bootable). Restart.

Assuming your initial recovery of the Windows Vista partition went well, you should be booted into Vista at this point.

Copy over the NT boot files to the Vista drive as well, then follow through with the dual-boot guide to re-configure boot.ini to point to the changed location of the XP drive.

Addendum:

Topic moved to correct location.