[KarenSeb]

Wooooooo Hooooooo - SUCCESS!!! You're a Wiz Rgreen :) - I did as you said, rebooted and WahLah - it gave me a choice. BUT when I tried to chose to boot to XP, it bugged out saying "Windows could not start because file ntldr is missing" The screen was labeled "Windows Boot Manager" Also on that screen was the instruction to load the installation disc and "repair". Now which CD do I boot from to fix this - XP or Vista. I would think XP.

[rgreen4]

Karen that is an XP file as it shows up in several places on my XP Pro machine. It is in C: which is of course the root directory, but also in C:windowsservicepackfilesi386.

I'm not totally sure where the "Windows Boot Manager" came from, it may be that EasyBCD program you loaded, but no matter. There are two things you can try.

1. Boot into Vista and use Vista to look at the XP drive, find the file in the Windowsservicepackfilesi386 directory and copy to the (root directory). I am not using letters because I do not know what letters your drives are using, but it should not matter if the XP drive is D, E, or whatever. Then reboot and see if it works.

2. Not as quick - unplug the cables from your Vista drive (assume C:) and reboot. If it does not boot, then reset the boot device to CD, insert you XP install disk and start the reinstall process. You will be given an early choice of reinstallin or using the recovery console. Do Not Use the Recovery Console - its for real techheads. After all the files are in memory, it will reboot and then ask if you want to reinstall or repair. Try repair. Then reboot.

If that does not work, do a full reinstall.

[rgreen4]

piyush - every BIOS I have encountered (even the 'crippled' ones from manufacturers) will handle multiple booting HD's. They are already set to accept multiple boot devices, the BIOS on my Gigabyte board comes up with a list of about 8 boot options when I hit F12 at POST. The HDD option has a "+" in front of it and when I select HDD, it then lists the 2 or 3 bootable drives detected on Post. Mine are Vista and XP and at one time I had Ubuntu and currently have Windows 2000 as the third drive.

It does not list the OS, just the drive specifications. In a much earlier post I mentioned that when I bought the materials to assemble this machine I bought 3 identical 80GB HD's (differing on by serial #'s) and got a surprise for when I installed the second OS and tried it, I was greeted by a menu of two identical choices. That is why different drives sized, mfgs, or even models help distinguish between them.

This even works on my notebook with two bootable drives (two bays), but since the only OS I can currently install is Vista, I have a choice of the primary drive or the backup. (Ubuntu is no longer on any of my drives.)

I find this a simpler method - you set the BIOS to normally boot of the desired drive and unless you hit a key at boot, you do not see the other options. You therefore do not have to go through the menu every time, just when you want to. And yes, on my machine with the Gigabyte board, it takes a few keystrokes to choose an alternative boot, but since I normally boot to Vista the vast majority of times, it's not a big deal.

[smax013]

KarenSeb said:

Wooooooo Hooooooo - SUCCESS!!! You're a Wiz Rgreen :) - I did as you said, rebooted and WahLah - it gave me a choice. BUT when I tried to chose to boot to XP, it bugged out saying "Windows could not start because file ntldr is missing" The screen was labeled "Windows Boot Manager" Also on that screen was the instruction to load the installation disc and "repair". Now which CD do I boot from to fix this - XP or Vista. I would think XP.

Actually, I believe you will want to use the Vista DVD to do the repair. Take a look at the "Restoring Vista and dual booting" portion of this web page. It should handle your problem even though you used a second physical disk rather than a second parition on a single disk as you should have the same basic problem...because you installed the "older" OS second, its bootloader does not recognize Vista and thus won't work with Vista and creates problems.

[rgreen4]

Actually, if you install each OS on a separate drive and use the BIOS boot menu, neither OS sees the other (or in my case the other two). What happens, is that the drive you select becomes the system drive and the other two are treated as secondary drives.

Except when I tried Ubuntu, and I could never get Ubuntu to see the other drives. Both Vista and XP saw the Ubuntu drive but of course did not recognize the file structure. This is not a problems with Vista, XP and W2K since they are all NTFS. It's the same as taking an XP drive out of another machine and putting in your main machine as a secondary drive to read the files.

No third party software is necessary.

[smax013]

rgreen4 said:

Actually, if you install each OS on a separate drive and use the BIOS boot menu, neither OS sees the other (or in my case the other two). What happens, is that the drive you select becomes the system drive and the other two are treated as secondary drives.

Except when I tried Ubuntu, and I could never get Ubuntu to see the other drives. Both Vista and XP saw the Ubuntu drive but of course did not recognize the file structure. This is not a problems with Vista, XP and W2K since they are all NTFS. It's the same as taking an XP drive out of another machine and putting in your main machine as a secondary drive to read the files.


No third party software is necessary.

True...if the seperate drives where disconnected when the other OS was installed.



Not sure if that is completely true if the drive of the already installed OS was connected and mounted when the new OS was installed. It is not true if installing onto a seperate partition. When doing a "traditional" dual boot, the master boot record gets "updated" and a boot manager needs to be use.



Thus, it kind of depends on how Karen went about installing. I believe if she installed XP on the seperate drive with the Vista drive installed and mounted, then I believe running the repair of the Vista install disk per the instructions in that article might help. I believe the issue is that see needs to have the master boot record "fixed" to reflect that there is also an XP installation that can be used to boot from. That is basically what the instructions are supposedly doing.

[KarenSeb]

Vista was re-installed first on the old 80G HD - which is Drive E. XP then installed on the new 16G HD which is Drive C.



I've done what you said Rgreen to no avail. I'm still getting the missing ntldr error message. Tried to reconfigure EasyBCD, and couldn't boot to any drive.

I repaired Vista and accessed EASY and deleted all entries.

I guess I'll have to go with the partition recommendation of MPH and the others. That will happen in time, as I have no time right now.

I want to Thank all of you for your help, advice and suggestions. You are all masters at what you do..... Thanks again!



Karen.............

[VladTheImpaler1990]

Can you please mark this thread as answered, and good luck and hope it will work out for you.

Vlad

[mphenterprises]

Hi Karen. I know, in your eyes, the alternative suggestion offered may not be the most ideal; however, I believe that is the most efficient way to run a Dual Boot System. You have more than adequate space to partition the larger hard drive and install both Operating Systems within it. As SMax stated, you can get cloning software to back up your Operating Systems in case of failure.

That all being said, don't give up hope just yet. I am sure RGreen will have some more troubleshooting techniques to try. The three of us, RGreen, SMax, and myself, rarely take "no" from a computer for an answer. :D

[rgreen4]

Yes, as a matter of fact. I would disconnect the Vista drive and then reinstall XP from scratch on the other drive. Then reboot. It should boot normally into XP. After that, then reconnect the 80GB with Vista and reboot. On boot you should get the boot sequence key at the bottom of the very first screen (actually you should always get it), take that key option, select which drive you want to boot from (temporarily) and it should boot to that drive.

If you have the 160GB set in BIOS as the normal boot drive, then the machine should boot into XP on the 160GB without doing anything (except entering your password if you have one setup).

This is the same as what I have set up in my PIP (Parts-is -parts, or home built) machine except I currently have 3 boot options. It normally boots into Vista, but XP and 2000 are available. I think Smax is correct in that each OS has to be installed on a solo drive, ie: all the other drives have to be dis-connected at the time of the OS installation. That is the way I did it, but just as a matter of caution, not as a matter of really thinking it made a difference. But apparently it does. This may seem to be a bit of a hassle, but then I haven't had the side on that machine in months.