Dual boot XP with windows 7 already installed

Okay guys, here was my full process in case anyone else does the same thing I did.
1. I had Windows 7 installed on my SATA drive to begin with
2. I Installed XP on a clean, internal IDE Drive
3. To get it to boot to Windows 7, I installed DualbootPro and installed the Windows 7 bootloader to all drives
4. It was at this point that XP would no longer boot correctly because it was giving the error message:
"Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:
<Windows root>\system32\hal.dll.
Please re-install a copy of the above file."
5. I tried everything.
i.e.: Rebuilding the boot.ini file,
repairing Windows XP using the disk,
copying the hal.dll file from the disk,
reinstalling XP from scratch,
But nothing worked
6. I got on here, and SIW2 suggested that I use the auto-configure function in EasyBCD 2.0 Beta software
7. IT WORKED!

If anyone does the same thing, you can skip step 5. That step took hours of googling, restarting, swapping discs, installing updates, trying software, waiting, etc.

Apparently the boot files (ntldr, boot.ini, NTDETECT) were all referring to incorrect drive path letters (boot files on J:\ were pointing to Windows files on C:\ etc.)

Thanks again, guys!!

You're welcome.

Thanks for posting back your results.

Glad it worked out for you.

Where did you install in XP or Win 7

He couldn't boot into XP, so he installed Easybcd 2.0 on Win 7.

I am ghosting my XP install as we speak, I will install easybcd in Win 7 then give it a shot, If you have it installed on both OS can it caue problems?

Shouldn't cause any problems, but is a bit pointless.

In essence, Easybcd is a front end GUI for bcdedit. It can be used from within XP to edit the Vista/7 bcd, but is best installed on 7.

I alwasys Ghost my system, it works if you can't go to a restore point, makes it easy to reinstall everthing, best backup I have ever used.

Muss518.....How were you able to install XP on another drive?? I'm having problems with that. Do I just boot from the CD and have on only the drive I want to install xp on??? When I do that I get "BOOTMGR MISSING", is this because the computer isnt booting from the cd????

sorry MUSS5138

Hi, guys!

I have almost the same problem, but I can't fix it this way.

I had windows 7 x64 installed on C: and then I bought a new disk and installed windows XP 32bit on E:. Of course I couldn't boot win 7, so I repaired the installation with boot cd. I then installed and run EasyBCD 2. I can choose which windows I want to boot now, but XP gives me an error about not finding NTLDR. I tryed copying NTLDR and that another *.com file I can't remember the name of from win XP cd, but it didn't help.

Another thing I noticed is my drive letters are different in windows 7 than in command prompt of win XP repair thing. And also in EasyCD if I look at the summary, it says I have win 7 on C: and also win XP on C:. I suspect boot.ini has wrong information, but can't find a way to edit that file.

I appreciate any help, thanks!