Cannot dual boot xp and Windows 7 with W7 installed first.

I have a Sony Vaio VPCEB1C5E Sony : VPCEB1C5E updates | Download updates for VPCEB1C5E. It had Windows 7 home premium x64 on it but the hard drive went bust and I lost everything. I own a Windows 7 professional x64 cd and license which I used as my laptop did not come with cds. I would like to play some old games which do not run correctly in "xp mode"

Anyway back on track, a week ago I attempted to dual boot it using the excellent tutorial on this forum. everything went fine it rebooted and booted into xp x32 (I have slipstreamed my SATA driver and .net framework x32) everything was looking up. I tried to install easybcd but it needed .net framework. (my VAIO is capable of running xp because at the above link it gives me the correct SATA driver and a utility to create a cd with the correct drivers for my software) at this point I had no internet so I shut down the laptop and ran easybcd from windows 7.

I ran easybcd (v2.2) and foolowed the guide. once done I moved a few files across to the windows xp partition (drivers mainly, I had not spare cds so I used total mounter to mount a virtual RW cd drive) I then rebooted the computer and selected Windows XP from the boot menu and it complained about ntoskrnl.exe being invalid. I sorted this out and since then it has suffered from a BSOD (7B)

I have wiped the data on it and installed xp, but it would move the files onto the disk and and reboot into the BSOD. To get rid of this I had to change the boot drive in W7 from the system reserved partition to my main C: drive. i then deleted the system reserved partition and now it will boot into win7 and complete the installation of xp but once the laptop reboots after installation to boot xp for the first time I am met with a BSOD again (7B)

I am literally stuck. I have searched and searched for answers to this problem. I have tried many things but they all end in that BSOD after installation. I know I have the correct driver because it worked the very first time. I have tried burning a second copy of the xp installation but there is no difference.

If I select safe mode is BSOD's at acpitabl.dat. my research has told me that it is due to an incorrect driver which cannot be the case because it has worked before. I have a feeling it is something to do with easybcd. Is there an easy way to undo what it has done? Since I ran easybcd xp BSOD's

I have read about putting sata into IDE/compatibility mode in the bios. I cannot do that. my current bios (R0300Y8) does on give my the option to.

As I say this has been happening for a week, i have searched using google and read many pages but not found a solution.

It would be great if someone could say "run cmd and type 'boot xp damn you!"" but that said it wasn't a recognised command (how apt :))

whs said:

Did you have a look at Option 2 here: Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

Yes, that was the guide i referred to on the first line of my second paragraph.

It worked until I used easybcd on windows 7 and I haven't seen the xp desktop since.

I've tried expending the windows 7 partition back to original size and rebooting. then following method 2 again but for some reason I simply cannot boot to the desktop on xp.

whs said:

So you made some mistake with EasyBCD. What exactly did you do ??

I followed the tutorial. I added a entry for xp and rebooted. complained about ntldr being missing.

Booted into windows 7 and put the xp disc in and tried to run the install while in w7 but found that I couldn't. I deleted the partition for XP and reformatted the space (unticking quick format) and went for a second go. Since I did that I have had nothing but BSOD's or boot.ini invalid or ntldr missing. after reading so much about these issues and trying fixes etc my head is literally messed up with what I have done and what I haven't done.

To top it all off I looked under "perform additional tasks" on the XP SP3 cd and found the "install .net framework" option. I could have avoided all this if I had seen that option the first time (well maybe, seeing as I only every saw the xp desktop the one time)

It is getting late for me and I have work tomorrow (it's 10:45pm in England) so I may not be able to reply to any responses until I next manage to log on tomorrow evening.

Apologies for the late reply.

I did as said above.

Same thing occurs.

It loads the files from cd to partition and reboots.

It then tries to boot into xp but fails due to an invalid boot.ini which then moves on to complain about ntoskrnl.exe being missing or invalid.

I then load my Windows 7 recovery disk and run startup repair 3 times (although it does nothing after first run) and then I reboot.

I am then met by the os selection menu offering me windows 7 and xp.

Selecting xp it boots into the installation and successfully installs and reboots.

If I select xp the xp splash screen comes up for about 2 seconds then bsod with 7b error.

I can boot into windows 7 fine.

I have run the bootrec /fixmbr, /fixboot and /rebuildbcd commands from the recovery cd.

This all points to something in the boot sector on my windows 7 installation because it worked the very first time I did this.

If I leave it as it is now and do a repair install of windows 7 would it pick up on xp being installed and sort it out for me?

I would like to avoid having to install windows updates again as I do not have unlimitediInternet.

I also have no backup solution (i know it is naughty) but im on a tight budget.

Okay I shall try that using the disk part command recovery disk. I think I have already tried that though but once more can't hurt.


I have had a thought.

I am only using 80gb out of 400gb for my windows 7. I am using approximately 65gb for my xp partition. If I was to create a 100gb partition by shrinking windows 7 partition could I use that as a backup solution and doing a fresh install of windows 7. Copy my backups back over and deleting that partition and extending my windows 7?

I will have the disk management screen shot later on as I am currently on my mobile phone.

If you're going to reinstall Win7 then I'd wipe the HD with Diskpart Clean Command since problems are often caused by corrupt boot code interfering which is solved by that command.

If you're trying to avoid reinstalling XP too then you can try that, however it's questionable XP has it's boot files correctly in place to be configured for a Dual Boot during Win7 install. That might be easier attempted using your Repair Install idea.

We might be able to say with more certainty after seeing the Disk Mgmt screenshot.