Problems in Dual Boot win 7 from win XP

Hi,
I have Windows XP installed and I tried to install Windows 7 to do a Dual boot with Windows 7 and XP.
There was no problem during installation of Windows 7 but now I am unable to ascess Windows XP.

I checked many online solutions to do a Dual boot.
Most of them required to resize the Win XP partition and create a new one for Win 7.

I have a single hard drive with 3 partitions.
C: 30GB System Primary Partition
D: 134GB Logical Drive
E: 130GB Logical Drive
F: 4GB Logical Drive (resized E drive)

I have XP installed on F Drive logical partition .
Then I installed Win 7 on C drive primary partition.
But now i can only run Win 7.

Is it that I need to install both the OS's on the Primary Partition???.

Will the dual boot work in the way I am tried to install it.
Are there any ways to do it how the way I did it.

Attaching a snipping tool picture of your disk management window might help.

If you have only one primary partition, the boot files must be there. Win 7 should have just incorporated the XP boot files into its own. But the requested picture will help.

You might also check the partitions and make sure the XP install is still where you think it is. And I am assuming when you say you can't access XP, you mean no boot menu option and not an error message when trying.

carlton said:

Hi,
I have Windows XP installed and I tried to install Windows 7 to do a Dual boot with Windows 7 and XP.
There was no problem during installation of Windows 7 but now I am unable to ascess Windows XP.

I checked many online solutions to do a Dual boot.
Most of them required to resize the Win XP partition and create a new one for Win 7.

I have a single hard drive with 3 partitions.
C: 30GB System Primary Partition
D: 134GB Logical Drive
E: 130GB Logical Drive
F: 4GB Logical Drive (resized E drive)

I have XP installed on F Drive logical partition .
Then I installed Win 7 on C drive primary partition.
But now i can only run Win 7.

Is it that I need to install both the OS's on the Primary Partition???.

Will the dual boot work in the way I am tried to install it.
Are there any ways to do it how the way I did it.

Personally, I would partition the Win 7 partition no less than 100gb, the Win XP partition no less than 8gb.

Windows XP can be installed on a extended (logical ) partiton but the boot loader must be and will be on a primary and active partition. I suspect that the boot loader for XP was on the C: partition and if you formated that partition during the Window 7 intall, it erased the XP boot. You can get a free program called EasyBCD and add XP as an operating system, thus creating a dual boot.

Here is the disk management screenshot......

Windows 7 is on C drive

Windows XP is installed on E drive ...And I did format C drive during Win 7 Setup cause there were some extra folders that I wanted deleted.

Now If I want Xp on logical E Drive and Win 7 on Primary C Drive...what do I DO?

I dont see any Win XP selection on startup nor any error.

I still havent used Easy BCD or VistaBootPro.....

You will need to put the XP boot files (ntdetect, ntldr, boot.ini) back on the system partition. You will need to alter boot.ini so it shows partition(3) or (4) depending on where XP really is.

After that, you will need to add the option to the boot menu using bcdedit.

EasyBCD will do all this for you. If you want to use bcdedit, there are tutorials showing how to add XP.

Install EasyBCD 2.0 beta after doing quick registration to use beta.

Add XP on Add/Remove tab, accept offered boot files, Save, restart.

You should have Dual Boot Menu. If not, post back screenshot of your Easy listings.

The best arrangement would have been to make a new Primary partition for XP, using free Partition Wizard CD if necessary.