Dual boot installation fail - 7 and XP

I am trying to get XP and 7 to run in dual boot mode. 7 is installed first. I am following the instructions posted in the tutorial by Brink on this site. I have made a partition and when I start the XP install and XP finishes the copy proses and the pc restarts I get an error message:

Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows Root>\System 32\ntoskrnl.exe
Please re-install a copy of the above file.

To get the Win 7 working again I have to to a Windows 7 startup repair.

Any suggestions? There seems to be a MBR problem somewhere as changes I make via EasyBCD don't get saved.

Short of reformatting the HDD what can I try?

Or possibly a bad XP install disc, has it been used successfully on other installs ?

Don`t reformat your hdd just to get XP installed, just run the startup repair to get 7 booting again.

Yeah well I suppose that dvd or whatever media could well past it's use by date and I would suspect too the it has no SP's on it as I have one left here at home - never used and if ti were like the other two I have used no SP's and heck of a lot of updates etc ad nauseum ad infinitum

AddRAM said:

Or possibly a bad XP install disc, has it been used successfully on other installs ?

Don`t reformat your hdd just to get XP installed, just run the startup repair to get 7 booting again.

I have used this disk before and it worked fine. I do repair with the 7 disk to get 7 working again. This has been going on for two days now.

I would get another used hard drive and install it on the system and unplug your Windows 7 drive if you really want to tinker with XP to get it installed. Once you get it installed, then hook up the W7 drive and use the bios to boot into either system.

Yup, the same one I use everywhere I need it.

Then I'd try again but if it won't resolve the boot files issue then you'd likely need to wipe the HD first with Diskpart Clean Command to clear the boot sector of code.

You can save a Macrium or Acronis (free with any WD or Seagate HD) backup image of Win7, wipe the HD, install XP first, then image Win7 onto a partition and add it to a Dual Boot from XP with EasyBCD.

This would be if you're feeling experimental because it's much more trouble than it's worth otherwise, when you can virtualize XP in Win7 easily with freeware like Virtual Box, Virtual Player, etc. You can also get almost any XP program to install in Win7 using Compatibility Mode.

You can install either OS first and they will both work fine, it doesn`t matter. The OP is having another isuue causing the problem.

But I totally agree, installing XP 1st is the better way to do it, and works flawlessly. But it`s not worth it just to install XP in this case.

Routine: W7 is already installed, install XP on 2nd partition, run startup repair to get 7 booting again, add XP bootloader with EsayBCD. Done.