Windows 7: Windows 7 Dual Boot XP problem

this has probably came up before, and ive done searches before but they seem to be different from my problem.. and this is urgent because my outlook is synced onto my windows 7... what happend was i had vista, and i dual booted windows 7.. my vista crashed.. and i replaced that partition with windows xp sp3 ... now when i turn on my computer it doenst allow me to boot to boot manager... ive tried easybcd but it wont work because its for vista... Please help... i need my emails =/

Once you dumped the Vista installation and likely reformatted to see XP installed you lost the Vista BCD and boot files to see 7 load. If you had reinstalled Vista you could have used the EasyBCD to add 7 back in there.

At this point you would now need to boot from the 7 dvd and try creating a new BCD file from the command prompt option found in the repair tools there. The same commands for rebuilding the Vista BCD would apply. How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows Vista

If you are unable to see new mbr entries for 7 as well as the main boot files you would have to reinstall 7 which will add XP in automatically as the second OS. XP uses an entirely different boot loader there being the older version.

Microsoft REAAAALLY needs to do something when installing XP + 7 on the same computer. I've just installed 7057 and I have the same old problem: can't boot XP.

but does reinstalling 7 mean that i will lose everything?

Microsoft does not support the loading of XP as a dual boot OS after installing a later OS (VIsta or Seven).

This is possible though ...

How to dual boot Vista and XP (with Vista installed first) -- the step-by-step guide with screenshots

Although for vista it should apply equally for Windows 7

This should work without you having to re-install either OS agin (SO LONG AS YOU HAVEN'T RE-FORMATTED THE PARTITION(S)).

First when installing multiple OS'es (apart from Linux) the OLDEST OS must be installed first so Windows XP should have been installed first.

To get back to Windows XP boot do the following

1) Insert your Windows XP boot disc and start the windows XP install. If your windows disc is on a SATA drive the windows XP boot disc needs to be slipstreamed with the SATA drivers or you'll get "No Hard Disc found". Use nLite to do this -- thete's info on the nLite site.

2) Now choose Repair system using the Recovery console. Enter the password your User has.

3) Simply type in FIXMBR.

Now the system will boot into XP. (You haven't lost Win 7 yet so long as you haven't re formatted the disk).

Save your data (outlook email or whatever).

Note if you use OUTLOOK (part of MS office -- corporate / full / enterprise version) there's a nice little outlook folders backup tool --download it from the Office site

it's called pfbackup.exe

After you've finished with XP boot the Windows 7 install disk and perform repair system.

It should fix the boot manager so you can still boot both XP and Windows 7.


Cheers
jimbo

Once you have the 7 BCD and mbr entries repaired you won't see XP load until added into the 7 BCD with the EasyBCD tool mentioned in the APG article Barman58 pointed to. The actual download page for the free tool is seen at Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies

In order to see the 7 boot loader restored there's also another "Step Four: Nuclear Holocaust" section on how to see that done for either Vista or 7 at Recovering the Vista Bootloader from the DVD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

These would be references looked over once XP was on and running. Once 7 is up and running again you can also look over the EasyBCD guides for adding new entries, configuring the boot loader, and setting the default OS as along with other settings at EasyBCD Documentation Home - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki

nice ill try it, if it fixes ill let u know

Those should help a lot there. But if you get stuck on something we're here to help.

thanks guys im back in windows 7 now !!! illjust see if i can get xp back ... which will be a lot easier i believe