Cannot select 2nd boot device

Hey all.

In a bit of a pickle with this one and it's changed and I don't know why. Ok, I have Windows 7 on my primary drive and XP on my secondary drive. I still use XP as I'm in the process of transferring all my program install files etc to an external USB then I will put them on windows 7.

I was able to manually select which OS I wanted the system to boot into by simply pressing ESC button during POST and then the boot menu would come up. Press your down arrow on keyboard and then you boot into XP no problem.

It is worth mentioning since that I actually went into BIOS and enabled "smart boot" which brought that menu up automatically so I no longer had to press ESC.

So, I go to boot into XP today (more files to backup etc) and uh oh, keyboard is not doing anything. It boots into Windows 7. Now, I wanted it to boot XP as this is secondary and what I do notice is that when I press arrow down (to get to secondary hard drive line) the screen flashes like its registering an input, but, does nothing.

This is frustrating as it didn't do this previously and I haven't changed anything. I even disabled smart boot option just to be sure and even borrowed a mates wired keyboard. Windows 7 installed it no trouble and I tried to boot XP with the wired one (my keyboard is wireless but it does work as I can get into BIOS) and even that failed.

That then tells me that it is not hardware related and both keyboards work and let me access the boot menu. Why then is the boot menu locked?

Anyone else had this problem?

Don't want to have to keep swapping master and slave channels everytime I boot just to get into XP.

Thanks all.

Try resetting the CMOS: Clear CMOS - 3 Ways to Clear the CMOS

Then set Win7 HD to boot first as before.

Now try the BBS key to select XP HD as wisely done before.

If this fails again and you cannot find the cause, the solution may need to be installing EasyBCD to Win7 to add XP to a Windows-managed Dual Boot Menu. Earlier versions of Easy are still free: EasyBCD 2.0.2 - NeoSmart Technologies

If you're lucky XP will retail it's System flag even as it is added to Win7 BCD. If not to remove it later you'll need to repair XP bootloader using Easy.