boot menu doesn't show up - XP and Win7 dual boot

It appears I've a similar problem as diznanl - Windows 7’s boot menu doesn’t show up after a fresh install on a hdd with 2 partitions of WinXP on it.

A brief OS installations history of this hdd might help. Initially this hdd was dual booting WinXP x86 and Vista x64 on it. A problem occurred when I tried to ghost over both partitions to a new hdd. This caused me to remove Vista x64 and installed WinXP x64 on a new partition while retaining the original WinXP x86 on the same hdd.

I have used the bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force to remove Vista’s boot menu. So that leaves me with a legacy dual boot of WinXP x86 and x64.
Win7's on H:

Fast forward a couple of months, I then decided to install and multi boot Win7 along with both XPs. When Win7’s boot menu did not pop up as expected, I tried using the command prompt in Win7’s DVD to run:
Bootrec.exe /fixMBR
Bootrec.exe /fixBoot

The commands ran fine but I was still getting XP’s legacy boot menu without Win7. Next, I tried to “Reinstall the Vista Bootloader” using EasyBCD. It did not help either.
Interestingly, EasyBCD showed remnant settings from my previous XP-Vista dual boot. The BCD displayed 1 XP entry – kindly please refer to attached pic.


I’ve verified ntldr is on XP’s c: and not on some other data partition.


Current boot.ini
boot.ini.txt

Would you guys kindly help me to resolve this issue as well please?

There was no NTLDR on the Downloads&Media partition... but there WAS a bootmgr file.

I tried to set "S:" as the partition to boot from in EasyBCD, but I got a "missing NTLDR" error.

Is there a way to repair a Windows XP partition after Windows 7 is installed? I think the problem has to do with XP, not Windows 7.

Should I just try to install XP via Windows 7 over my old installation? Would that work?

posthumous said:

It appears I've a similar problem as diznanl - Windows 7’s boot menu doesn’t show up after a fresh install on a hdd with 2 partitions of WinXP on it.

A brief OS installations history of this hdd might help. Initially this hdd was dual booting WinXP x86 and Vista x64 on it. A problem occurred when I tried to ghost over both partitions to a new hdd. This caused me to remove Vista x64 and installed WinXP x64 on a new partition while retaining the original WinXP x86 on the same hdd.

I have used the bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force to remove Vista’s boot menu. So that leaves me with a legacy dual boot of WinXP x86 and x64.
Win7's on H:

Fast forward a couple of months, I then decided to install and multi boot Win7 along with both XPs. When Win7’s boot menu did not pop up as expected, I tried using the command prompt in Win7’s DVD to run:
Bootrec.exe /fixMBR
Bootrec.exe /fixBoot

The commands ran fine but I was still getting XP’s legacy boot menu without Win7. Next, I tried to “Reinstall the Vista Bootloader” using EasyBCD. It did not help either.
Interestingly, EasyBCD showed remnant settings from my previous XP-Vista dual boot. The BCD displayed 1 XP entry – kindly please refer to attached pic.


I’ve verified ntldr is on XP’s c: and not on some other data partition.


Current boot.ini
boot.ini.txt

Would you guys kindly help me to resolve this issue as well please?

The automated way to try this is to boot into Win7 Installer Repair console and run Startup repair repeatedly.

If/when it boots up to the 7 desktop, if necessary run a repair install (which is an in-place Upgrade) so that 7 will reconfigure the boot menu and re-establish itself correctly as last installed. You will need to reactivate.

If 7 doesn't configure the boot menu correctly, use EasyBCD to post back here a screenshot of entries given along with a screenshot of your Disk Management map. https://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...en-forums.html

So, I'm back in XP. I loaded UBCD for Windows, used a couple of the partition programs to fix it so I could boot into XP.

For some odd reason, Windows 7 wants to set my Downloads&Media drive as a boot partition!! I don't get it!

I'm booting straight into XP now, no Windows 7 bootmanager. I figured I'd try to get the bootmanager back using the Win7 disk and Startup Repair. Well, it just changed the boot partition to Downloads&Media again ... I got the NTLDR is Missing error.

So, I used the UBCD to change the Downloads&Media to a NON-bootable partition.

And I loaded in to XP again, no problems.

How do I get my Windows 7 back, along with a solid way to get into XP?

What I would do at this point is unplug all other drives except the XP/Win7 dual boot drive, boot from the Win7 installer and reinstall Win7 to it's (formatted) partition to re=establish the dual boot correctly without any chance of the bootloader being derailed to another drive.

IF you can use Win7 startup repair to get into 7 then you only need to run a repair install (upgrade over installation) which will also reconfigure the boot correctly with those other drives unplugged.

There have been a number of these cases and they underline the importance of unplugging all other drives except where you want to install Win7 or dual boot with another OS.

gregrocker said:

What I would do at this point is unplug all other drives except the XP/Win7 dual boot drive, boot from the Win7 installer and reinstall Win7 to re=establish the dual boot correctly without any chance of the bootloader being derailed to another drive.

IF you can use Win7 startup repair to get into 7 then you only need to run a repair install (upgrade over installation) which will also reconfigure the boot correctly with those other drives unplugged.

I hear you ... that sounds like a logical plan. I just want to know why Win7 is changing the XP boot partition... it's just WEIRD. It doesn't even give me an option to NOT do this. Why is it messing with XP?

In any case, I have Windows 7 still installed. Is there a way to re-apply the bootmanager for Windows 7 without having to reinstall?

Win7 was looking for partition marked active.

Mark WIn7 active using XP disk management or Partition Wizard disk. Unplug other drives and Run startup repair repeatedly from Win7 installer repair console.

gregrocker said:

Win7 was looking for partition marked active.

Mark WIn7 active using XP disk management or Partition Wizard disk. Unplug other drives and Run startup repair repeatedly from Win7 installer repair console.

I marked the Win7 as active...

I shutdown and disconnected the other drives

I loaded the Win7 disk and it repaired the Win7 partition/boot

I loaded EasyBCD and added Windows XP

The bootloader showed XP and Windows 7 (recovered)

I loaded XP ... worked fine

I loaded Win7 ... worked fine

Shutdown and reconnected the other drives

Tested both XP and Win7 again ... success.

Thank you gregrocker and SIW2 for all the help! Kudos / reputation points have been left for you!

gregrocker's suggestion worked for me too!

firstly i removed active from all data partitions, but did not set Win7's partition as active.
next, i formatted Win7's partition and reinstalled it.

installation then rebooted and i was greeted by Win7's boot loader:


if i were to choose "Earlier Version of Windows" it would take me to XP's boot loader:


is there a way i can intergrate all three OS into one boot loader directly? meaning having Windows 7, Old XP and New XP appear together on the boot loader.
i tried messing about with EasyBCD 2.0 beta but couldn't get anywhere with it.

Thank you gregrocker!