[Rimz]

Hi,

Sorry for this longish post, I just want to explain things as clearly as possible.

I am having problems dual booting XP and Vista. XP boots up as default which is what I want for the time being but I cannot boot to Vista. I do not get the boot loader during start-up so I cannot choose. The only way I can boot to Vista is to have the Vista DVD in the dvd drive at start-up, which loads the Vista boot loader allowing me to choose what OS I want to boot from.

I have 2 HDD’s:

1. My main drive is 250G. This has 2 partitions (200G for XP Pro 64bit and the rest for Vista Business 32bit)
2. My second drive is 160G with XP Pro 32bit and is only used as a backup. I cannot boot to this drive either. I transfer files from my main drive to this one.

I would like the option to boot to all three without an application like Acronis Boot Selector – I’ve tried this with my old system and it worked fine for a week and then I couldn’t boot to anything!

Ideally I would like to use Vista Boot Loader or something built into Windows so I can choose what OS to choose to boot from. My main goal is just to get my main drive working with XP 64 and Vista. The 2nd drive would be a bonus. I have not changed the ‘jumpers’ on the 2nd drive, I don’t know if I need to… there is no labelling to show me which is slave etc. So at the moment both drives are primary but the Vista partition is not (if that makes sense).

I have tried ‘Vista Boot PRO’ and ‘Easy BCD’ to configure the boot options but I am having no luck. Changing Vista to default or changing XP 64 to default from within Vista made no difference. I know Vista does not use boot.ini any longer but this is my boot.ini for my default OS, XP 64:

;
;Warning: Boot.ini is used on Windows XP and earlier operating systems.
;Warning: Use BCDEDIT.exe to modify Windows Vista boot options.
;
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windo ws XP Professional x64 Edition" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT /USEPMTIMER

Vista or XP 32bit are not on there, are they meant to be?

Also, which ever OS I boot with, whether it is XP 64 or Vista, the drive is always C… When I boot normally with XP 64, Vista is Drive H and when I boot from Vista (with Vista DVD), XP 64 is drive D. Won’t this confuse things?

This is my boot sequence:

1. DVD drive
2. DVD/RW drive
3. Main hard drive
4. Second hard drive

Any advise would be greatly appreciated, thanks for your time.

[Monkeyboy]

Have you tried using VistaBootPro to control your bootloader?

http://www.vistabootpro.org/

(Thanks to Zardon for putting me onto that one quite a while back).

[Rimz]

Hi ^

Yes, I have tried Vista Boot Pro... this did not resolve the issue. I have also heard that 'Easy BCD' is slightly better so I tried that too, this did not work either. I kind of get the feeling that I am doing something wrong but I don't know what.

[Lelisevis]

Tried playing with the boot drive priority in the bios? Just mentioning it as I hate bootloaders and have two totally seperate drives one with Vista one with XP I pick which one I want using Drive boot priority.

[Rimz]

No I haven't mate. Also do you mean boot sequence? if so, my XP 64 and Vista are on the same drive but on different partitions. With boot sequence you can only choose drives and not the partitions on a drive, right?

[Lelisevis]

Ahh,ok. Yes you may be I guess it depends on the mobo and bios. Does it have a bios boot menu. Mines F10, not sure if you can boot partitions. Might be worth a try. I've never really given that much thought but you got me wondering now.

[Monkeyboy]

Vista doesn't like sharing a drive with XP (sorry, I didn't catch that you had these on the same drive when I initially read your post).

It's best to put Vista and XP on seperate drives - I have mine set up that way and it works fine.

[jabbermacy]

Originally Posted by Monkeyboy

Vista doesn't like sharing a drive with XP (sorry, I didn't catch that you had these on the same drive when I initially read your post).

It's best to put Vista and XP on seperate drives - I have mine set up that way and it works fine.

Bully - I have a config that I never thought would work - Nvidia RAID 0 boot drive w/ Xp64 and Vista 64 on separate partitions. If EasyBCD don't do it, it can't be done You MUST do a clean intall from XP and MAKE SURE you yank the DVD on first reboot. TRUST.

[Monkeyboy]

Originally Posted by jabbermacy

Bully - I have a config that I never thought would work - Nvidia RAID 0 boot drive w/ Xp64 and Vista 64 on separate partitions. If EasyBCD don't do it, it can't be done You MUST do a clean intall from XP and MAKE SURE you yank the DVD on first reboot. TRUST.

I'm only speaking from personal experience - I've known a few people who tried installing Vista and XP on the same drive and eventually they all gave up and just put them on seperate drives, which works fine.

To the OP: It's also important to note the order in which the OSes are installed - if XP is installed after Vista, it will wipe out the bootloader for Vista and you will only get the XP install at boot (the rule of thumb is install the oldest version of Windows first, following with the next oldest and finishing by installing Vista - but maybe you know this already?)

Congrats on getting Vista working with a RAID array btw - I guess they got the drivers sorted out now then.

[Lelisevis]

Originally Posted by Monkeyboy

I'm only speaking from personal experience - I've known a few people who tried installing Vista and XP on the same drive and eventually they all gave up and just put them on seperate drives, which works fine.

Congrats on getting Vista working with a RAID array btw - I guess they got the drivers sorted out now then.

Im interested in that comment, are people having issues with RAID arrays? I have actually listed that as one of Vista's strengths, RAID was supported out of the box for me with no need for extra drivers on floppy disks. Anything that stops me getting a floppy out has to be a big point in my books.

Any luck Rimz? Have you tried running BCEDIT from a administrator enabled window in Vista, maybe list what's in that, see if anyone can suggest anything.

[Monkeyboy]

Originally Posted by Lelisevis

Im interested in that comment, are people having issues with RAID arrays? I have actually listed that as one of Vista's strengths, RAID was supported out of the box for me with no need for extra drivers on floppy disks. Anything that stops me getting a floppy out has to be a big point in my books.

Any luck Rimz? Have you tried running BCEDIT from a administrator enabled window in Vista, maybe list what's in that, see if anyone can suggest anything.

A few problems with RAID setups were reported when Vista was first released to businesses back in November, but I guess not many business desktops would be using RAID anyway. Anyway, I'm glad it's been sorted out now.

[Rimz]

Hi all,

Well I haven't got a RAID setup but that's really not the issue, I know Vista and XP can be installed on the same drive under different partitions. Google it... "dual boot xp and vista".

In the root of my XP 64 OS (default) there is a folder named 'Boot' which was created the same time Vista was installed. Its got a lot of sub folders with stuff in it, I've not really looked around within it. Isn't this 'Boot' folder for Vista and not XP?

I'll have a look at what BCEDIT says and will post back shortly. I might also try the repair option on the Vista DVD.

Thanks all.

[merlinxi]

What I did is ran the setup from Windows XP. For some reason if you run the setup from DOS (booting to DVD), Vista doesn't attach itself to the bootloader and you can't install it. Especially if you do it on a different partition and/or hard drive. (Which you should do anyway.) After the initial install through XP , then the bootloader for Vista appeared on startup, replacing the XP bootloader.

Or you can use the old method of disconnecting to one hard drive.