New
#1
Exactly how does the W7 destroy the XP bootloader? Repair options?
Exactly what does the W7 do to the XP bootloader/manager and how do I repair it?
And why does W7 freeze my bios (? or just it's own boot manager?) on startup?
Whenever I can I keep separate OSes on separate HDDs and choose what HDD to boot from at startup. The whole household is now in the process of migrating from WXP to W7 (mostly bypassing Vista) - only the kids realise some old beloved games won't work under W7. So multiple OSes on each computer is a necessity. No problems, really, HDDs are cheap and computers have vacant bays.
Now, I refurnished an old desktop for one of the kids - and used upgrade media to install W7Pro 32bit to a new HD - the only option I had at this point was to install it from inside XP (which is residing on the original HDD).
As predicted, W7 screwed up the XP boot loader, leaving the XPdisk unbootable, only I had hoped to be able to use the W7 boot loader and boot XP from that. Now I got a problem I hadn't reckoned on.
The w7 boot screen comes up with both alternatives (XP and W7). ONLY I cannot chose. The computer does not respond to Tab, Enter, Up/Down Arrows, Esc or even F8. (It lists all those possibilities but it does not respond.) It never does.
It's not a keyboard problem since I've used multiple different old and new keyboards (multiple different connections) with the same result. I have to wait the default 30s before the default OS W7 kicks in. (I can access all files from the XPdrive when inside w7.)
So I've disabled the XPdrive right now, to get rid of the useless boot manager. That works. If I only want to use W7.
Only I want to boot the XPdrive - which I plan to have as no 1 in the boot order and hit Esc at startup to choose whether to boot from the XP or W7 HDD (or some Linux-y stuff on a future third HDD). That should make me indepoendent of the W7 boot manager.
So either - can someone help we work around the mysteroius W7 BMS freeze, OR, preferrably, explain (or point me to a good tutorial about) exactly what does W7 do to my XP boot (when installed from inside XP) and how do I repair it?
When I google options some recommend a XP repair, others discourage that and suggest a XPreinstall instead. Any suggestions? (I'm backing up of course, but I would prefer not having to wipe and format the and reinstalling everything again.)
Back in the XPdays, I handled a couple of NTLDRmissing-incidents, but this is obviously something different and worse.
I would prefer a solution that did NOT include EasyBCD or GRUB.
I'm not 'fluent' in BCDEdit.
Many thanks in advance.