Member Avatar for Richard7

Hi,

I have 2 hard drives on my computer, both running Windows XP MCE 2005. I will install the Vista upgrade on my 200GB hard drive later and leave XP on the 80GB HD, so I can dual boot (that is dual booting right?). I would like to ask you for some help because, I can't access the 80 GB Hard drive. I was only able to access it when I loaded windows on it, but after I rebooted I couldn't figure out how to get back in. I thought there was supposed to be a boot menu asking me from which hard drive I want to boot from, right? Please help me to get this menu up. I tried pressing F2 but that just boots up the BIOS (like del) and F8 asks me if I want to boot windows with safe mode and crap like that.

Thanks in advance for the help,

Richard.

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by joshSCH

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Member Avatar for joshSCH

So you installed vista after xp? Vista changes the MBR and makes itself the default boot.. you need to use bootcfg to change the boot menu and add XP

Member Avatar for Richard7

So you installed vista after xp? Vista changes the MBR and makes itself the default boot.. you need to use bootcfg to change the boot menu and add XP

Well now I have Vista on the 200GB HD and XP on the 80GB HD, but when I turn on the computer I don't get a boot menu asking me if I want to use Vista or XP, it just boots Vista by default. You're saying I need to use bootcfg to change the boot menu so it adds XP to it and asks me what I want to boot? If that's so please tell me how to do it, I've been in a windows-struggle for the past week, it's taken a part of my soul. Fuck those gay windows programmers.

Member Avatar for joshSCH

ah, sorry.. it's called bcdedit in vista..

lol.. it actually took me a long time to figure out their damn bcdedit, so I use a different program to edit vista boot menu.. heres a link:

http://www.pcworld.com/downloads/file/fid,64565/description.html

After you install the program, go to Add/remove entries. Then, at the bottom there is a nifty way to add os.. tell me if this helps any!

Member Avatar for Richard7

Ok, just finished downloading it. Thanks mate. I'll reply when I've tried it.


Rich

Member Avatar for Richard7

Ok well I've just tried it. I got the menu at startup but when I selected Windows XP it said ''Booting from C:/Windows and then nothing happens, just a black screen appears. I set it to boot from F:/ because that's where I have the XP installation. Vista is on the C:/ drive.
What did I do wrong?

Member Avatar for Richard7

Actually I checked it again and it says :

Invalid BOOT.INI file
Booting from C:\Windows

Isn't boot.ini just in XP?
Really have no idea what to do.

Member Avatar for lenelson

Actually I checked it again and it says :

Invalid BOOT.INI file
Booting from C:\Windows

Isn't boot.ini just in XP?
Really have no idea what to do.

I think you may have corrupted your XP OS, if you reinstall XP to the 'F' drive, I think you will automatically have a dual boot screen come up.
lenelson

Member Avatar for joshSCH

no, that would destroy vista's boot menu and you would not be able to boot vista... you say xp is on the f: and vista is on the c:? Make sure you wrote that properly in the easybcd program. yes, boot.ini is only in XP. Boot to vista and make sure you properly wrote the XP boot entry. Make sure you choose the correct version of XP, and the correct drive letter.

My only other suggestion would be to use the XP recovery console.. fixmbr

Well, you could try manually adding in XP through bcdedit

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