tried adding XP as a dual boot--disabled my PC

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  1. Posts : 50
    Windows 7 Home Premium
       #1

    tried adding XP as a dual boot--disabled my PC


    Running Win7 on a Gigabyte SLI dual video card mobo (only one installed, can't remember the name of the board), 6G ram, I7, 64bit.

    Tried to add XP as a dual boot option on a partitioned 100G H: drive. Upon initial installation of XP, everything goes fine, it installs all the files it needs, then says it's gonna reboot in 15 secs. After that it goes wrong. PC boots back up to the black screen saying "booting from CD, hit any key to boot from CD." It should be going stright to the 30 minute install screens of XP, but all it does it stick to this endless loop. If you hit any button to boot to CD, all it does is start the same process over, asking you what partition you want, etc.

    Besides that, now it will not boot to Win7, so my PC is trashed at this point. The only way I know to fix it is to format the whole HDD and start over. I wonder if this is something to do with my mobo...

    I'm hoping someone knows what magic button to push to make this work, which I really doubt, but if I have to start from scratch, will I have better luck installing XP first, then adding Win7 as the 2nd option?

    The only way for me to check answers on this now is to drive to a wifi spot in town and use my laptop, so hopefully I have given you all the info you need to answer this.
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  2. Posts : 5,807
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64 - Mac OS X 10.6.4 x64
       #2

    I would complety wipe the computer->Install XP first-> Then install 7...7's bootloader will take over and add XP automatically...
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  3. Posts : 50
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Thanks, I'll keep that in mind iof I don't get an answer to my question. I have lots of data on this PC that i am not ready to delete. I need to recover it if it is possible.

    Actually, I am not even sure formatting the C: Win7 drive will help because I would be doing exactly what I said I did if I followed your advice. I have two partitions on that HDD, one for each OS. So if I formatted them both and tried to install XP, wouldn't I be in the same boat I am right now? I need to know why I can't get past the black boot screens.
    Last edited by Madwand; 24 Jul 2009 at 13:30.
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  4. Posts : 5,807
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64 - Mac OS X 10.6.4 x64
       #4

    Madwand said:
    Thanks, I'll keep that in mind iof I don't get an answer to my question. I have lots of data on this PC that i am not ready to delete. I need to recover it if it is possible.

    Actually, I am not even sure formatting the C: Win7 drive will help because I would be doing exactly what I said I did if I followed your advice. I have two partitions on that HDD, one for each OS. So if I formatted them both and tried to install XP, wouldn't I be in the same boat I am right now? I need to know why I can't get past the black boot screens.
    Is AHCI enabled in your BIOS?
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  5. Posts : 50
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Thread Starter
       #5

    I have no idea, that is not an option in my bios.
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  6. Posts : 5,807
    Windows 7 Home Premium x64 - Mac OS X 10.6.4 x64
       #6

    It is just a setting in your BIOS...normally it falls under AHCI compatibility [enable][disable]
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  7. Posts : 50
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Thread Starter
       #7

    I went ahead and formatted my whole HDD as I found that XP will not install if there are ANY partitions on the HDD when you try to install. So XP is currently installing normally as it always has in the past.

    My question now is how do I get it to dual boot 7 and make 7 my primary system. I have seen tutorials on here about doing the dual boot and you say some bootloader will fix everything. But I want XP to be minimal and will only use it for when 7 won't do the job, which it normally does. Am I going to have to live with XP being C and 7 being G? Is that going to interfere with anything such as installing programs when they want to go to C by default? Any other problems? From experience, I don't see this going smoothly past XP installing.


    http://forums.pcper.com/showthread.php?t=444831
    The problem is that if you installed Windows in IDE mode (ie you didn't use F6 and supply a driver disk), then simply changing the BIOS setting to AHCI mode and rebooting will cause Windows to fail and will require a repair install. Most people have been advising to reinstall Windows if you want AHCI enabled.
    Last edited by Madwand; 24 Jul 2009 at 16:14.
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  8. Posts : 50
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Thread Starter
       #8

    I knew it wouldn't go smoothly...I installed XP, then I partitioned my 600G HDD to 100G for C and a new partition of 500G for D. Now I reboot just like before and tell my bios to boot from CD and it says booting crom CD 2X then boots to XP normally. It wasn't doing that before. No matter what I do, it won't boot the 7 disc that I used to install many times before. This mess never ends...
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  9. Posts : 2,111
    Win7 Build 7600 x86
       #9

    Madwand said:
    I knew it wouldn't go smoothly...I installed XP, then I partitioned my 600G HDD to 100G for C and a new partition of 500G for D. Now I reboot just like before and tell my bios to boot from CD and it says booting crom CD 2X then boots to XP normally. It wasn't doing that before. No matter what I do, it won't boot the 7 disc that I used to install many times before. This mess never ends...
    I don't understand why you wiped the whole disk, I thought you said you had data on it?

    But now that you did. The question is, why not only Windows 7? Is there anything that you need that won't run on windows 7?

    Besides, you could always install Virtual PC and run a XP in there for that rare program that won't work under Win7

    Think about it.

    If you still decide you must install dual boot with XP, let me know, I'll help you setting it up the right way.

    greetz,
    Last edited by SquonkSC; 24 Jul 2009 at 17:34. Reason: typo
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  10. Posts : 50
    Windows 7 Home Premium
    Thread Starter
       #10

    I formatted because the only person who answered me said that was the way to do it. See above.

    I would love to have only Win7 as it is a great OS. But you should know there are many programs that will not run on it. In particular, I play video games and many of them either will not support online gameplay or were made to play ONLY on XP or earlier OSs, ie. Splinter Cell Chaos Theory. Just cause a game is a few years old does not mean that I should not be able to play it. I just purchased that game and can't play it. There's nothing to think about.

    I have installed Win7 many times before with no problem, but on a HDD with only one partition and one OS. Now I have a 2nd partition ready for it and XP installed and I can't boot the CD. I had decided I needed to dual boot before I posted this. None of the methods I followed helped, so if you have info I can use, I would appreciate knowing it.
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