[KarenSeb]

First off - Hello Rgreen and Mr MPH Moderator Sir :)


Several months ago on the wonderful advice from Mr Rgreen, I installed Vista on my 80G HD, and re-installed XP on my 160G HD - in that order. My question is: How can I choose to boot from either OS from the initial boot up? I've read (in other no name forums - hehehe) that there is a way to choose which OS to boot from by way of altering the boot.ini file. However, doing a search on both drives, I find that I have no boot.ini file :0 Is that possible? Is that the solution I need?


Fire away my friends.... I'm all "eyes" :)

[mphenterprises]

Welcome back Karen. :-)




I have changed your Discussion title to give a clearer indication of your question. Now, essentially you already have a Dual Boot system so each time you restart your computer, you should see a screen that prompts you to select which Operating System who want to use. (Essentially that is what I see on a regular basis.)

Now, you can use an application called EasyBCD to manipulate which Operating System you want to set as the default Operating System and how long the system will wait until it defaults to that Operating System. However, this should have been automatic once you installed Windows XP onto that second drive.

[KarenSeb]

Thank you Mr. MPH Moderator Sir:
No screen comes up with a choice of which OS to choose. It just boots right into XP. I have tried EasyBCD - installed it on Vista, installed it on XP. XP errors out. I can't get past the install screen. The error is ".NET 2.0 Framework not found - Please correct the above errors and reinstall"

[mphenterprises]

I just thought of something else. Since you have each Operating System on separate hard drives, make sure that both hard drives are designated as Master drives. At this point, I gather that the Vista hard drive is the Primary Master and the XP drive is the Primary Slave. If this is the case, that is why you are not giving the option to choose which Operating System you want to load.

Going by this assumption, set the jumper on the back of the XP drive to Secondary Master and then restart the computer. Your BIOS should recognize two Master drives and, at that time, should prompt you to choose which Operating System you want to load. I would use EasyBCD first. If you do not, the default time to select an Operating System is about three seconds. If you are not right in front of your computer, you will miss that window. Using EasyBCD, set the time delay to about 30 seconds and then adjust the hard drive settings. You should have no problem after that.

[piyushsingh]

you are saying that no choice of OS comes , then how are you able to start vista if it boots directly to xp.

[KarenSeb]

Hiya Piyushsingh

In order to boot to Vista, I have to disconnect the cable(s) leading to the XP drive.



Mr. Mph, I will have to try to find a jumper.....and do as you say.

[piyushsingh]

thats what i was thinking , you dont need to do that actually.Keep both hdd jumpers to "cable select"

the problem is that u installed xp after vista i.e an older version of windows after a newer one. And in doing this the MBR got over-written which will not recognize the vista bootloader.

If you would have done the reverse i.e install vista after xp , then vista bootloader which recognises xp will be dominant.

you need to recover the vista bootloader to dual boot in a normal way.I will just post the exact code needed to do so.

[mphenterprises]

Hi Karen. In hindsight, it may have been more advantageous if you would have created the Dual Boot setup on the same hard drive but partitioned the hard drive so that each Operating System gets its own partition. You could then use the other drive for data storage. However, either option that has been presented to you by Piyush and myself will work for you. Piyush indicated that he is going to get some coding for you. Let's start with that option.

[piyushsingh]

What mph said seems to be a good option, you may try that first as it wont involve any messing with the OS installations .

hey mph! there is an even easy way (than with the command prompt of which i was earlier talking) which worked for me when i earlier dual booted (xp after vista but on the same drive)
follow these screens:
get ur vista dvd and boot from it, you should see a window like this.
!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
1!
select repair you computer .


you will see the next window

!http://forums.pcworld.com/legacyimages/
1!

select startup repair .

It will repair its bootloader.

[KarenSeb]

Ok - I do this from the Vista HD right? Not from the XP HD? Just making sure....

Btw - Thank you guys once again for coming to my rescue :)

I will keep you posted.

[VladTheImpaler1990]

No you don't have to have it from any harddrive you must put the dvd or cd in before the computer starts p then boot onto that disk, do you know how to set to boot from cd, i am sure. So change your bios settings to boot from cd and then you will be away with your repair.

[KarenSeb]

Ok Guys - I "repaired" the system. I still don't get an option to chose from an OS upon bootup. Do I still need to add jumpers?
I tried again to re-install EasyBCD software - same error.



Let me add that when I enter Bios - It states that my "add on HDD's" are not present. When I go to a "detail" in the drives - it states SATA 2 - 80G, and on SATA0 - my 160G.

[mphenterprises]

Hi Karen. I still think you may be making this a bit harder than necessary. You have two drives totally a quarter Terabyte of space. One of the two drives is 160GBs. That is plenty of space to install both Operating Systems. You can then use the 80GB hard drive as data storage. Try these steps:



(Assumption that Vista is on the 160GB SATA 0 Drive)

- Back up any important data on the 80GB SATA 2 Drive

- Format the 80GB SATA 2 Drive


At this point, you now have one Operating System (Vista) on the SATA 0 Drive and a clean SATA 2 Drive

- Follow the steps laid out within this article to partition the SATA 0 Drive and install Windows XP within the newly created partition

Once complete, you will have Windows Vista and Windows XP on the SATA 0 Drive within different partitions and each restart will prompt you to choose which Operating System you want to use. If the SATA 0 Drive started with Windows XP, follow the same steps but use this article instead.

If you have any problems with the articles, please post. I have some workarounds that may not be available within the articles.

[rgreen4]

Hey, Karen - welcome back. I think that there is an even easier way - or two. One - each time you start, you should be able to go into the BIOS and change which drive is the boot drive. If you have multiple hard drives, this choice is expanded from just CDROM, HDD, Floppy, etc. It is very good that you have different size HD's because then they are easier to distinguish.
A quicker method is to press the key on the initial POST that gives you the option of changing the boot order (for this boot only). On most of my machines, that is F12. Then the options come up along the bottom, simply press F12 and you will get a menu. On my HP laptop it is F9, so they will vary. On reboot, it will default back to the boot drive designated in the BIOS.

[KarenSeb]

Mr. MPH Moderator Sir : Thank you for the advice. I could've made the choice to partition the 160G to run both Vista and XP, but that is not what I want. I want 2 separate drives with 2 separate OS's. Why? Because my experience with hard drives is they crash w/o a moments notice. This way if one crashes, the other will serve as a backup, or vice-versa. I have just gone through formatting both drives, and would rather not go through all that again. I know it's no major task. If in fact I can't find a fix for this, then I will reconsider your suggestion. I do greatly appreciate your input tho :)



Hey Rgreen.... Thanks! :).... I'll have to give this a try and get back to you on this - I'm at work right now ;)

[smax013]

KarenSeb said:

Mr. MPH Moderator Sir : Thank you for the advice. I could've made the choice to partition the 160G to run both Vista and XP, but that is not what I want. I want 2 separate drives with 2 separate OS's. Why? Because my experience with hard drives is they crash w/o a moments notice. This way if one crashes, the other will serve as a backup, or vice-versa. I have just gone through formatting both drives, and would rather not go through all that again. I know it's no major task. If in fact I can't find a fix for this, then I will reconsider your suggestion. I do greatly appreciate your input tho :)





Hey Rgreen.... Thanks! :).... I'll have to give this a try and get back to you on this - I'm at work right now ;)

If ~22087]'s suggestion is not an option for you (i.e. if you computer does not have that boot option), then you could still go with [~44270] suggestion, but then get a second 160 gb hard drive and some cloning software like [Acronis' TrueImage and clone your dual boot partitioned 160 gb drive. Then you would have your "backup" drive if something goes wrong with the regular boot drive. Supposely, TrueImage will clone an entire drive, inlcuding all partitions.

[rgreen4]

It does, and if you go to a bigger drive it also sets up the partitions in a proportional way. Say you have an 80 split 50/30 and you clone to a 160, then the split on the 160 is 100/60.

[KarenSeb]

Smax, than you but buying another HD is not an option :(



Rgreen - I tried what you suggested. Actually I have tried it several times before and thought I might've been missing something. I followed your direction, and no matter what HD I choose as the boot drive - the same thing happens - XP boots.



I think there might be something more than meets the eye here as far as being wrong. I dunno but now I'm getting frustrated ?:| I thought this would have been an easy fix.

[rgreen4]

Karen - you may have to remind us of your machine specifications as it has been a while since we have seen them. What make and model and I take from the swap leads, that it is a desktop.

Are the drives SATA or IDE? I think I remember that they are SATA, but I would rather be sure. If they are SATA, swap the signal leads, the narrow cable and see if it boots to Vista by default.

[piyushsingh]

sorry i couldnt reply earlier after my initial post ,had some problem.
thats sad that none of the options are working for you.I think the cause for this is that you installed each of the OSes on separate hdd and more importantly with one disconnected when other was in phase of installation. Had u done this with both jumpers set to cable select, it would have been fine.
what you can do now is what mph said : backup and install again .Install both OS on different partitions of same HDD. First install XP and then vista for a trouble free setup.You wont be needed to change any other setting after that. :-)