Help! I've screwed up my XP partition

Eviellan · 20 Oct 2009

Snuffy said:

Really simple Question. did you boot to the DVD and then install Win 7 on S: (recommended way.) or did you do it from XP.(not recommended.)

I booted from the DVD.

aem · 20 Oct 2009

If you don't mind erasing W7 (format it's partition), i'd do it and see if the system can revert back to Xp. How you install your orginal OS might dictate whether this will work or not. Note: do it at your own risk :)

Snufffed · 20 Oct 2009

Ok, strange because that is also how I dual boot.
and my N: with Win7 stays N:
Vista stays C: no matter what I do.

where is you {bootmgr}
cmd ( as admin} bcdedit scan to find {bootmgr}

I did not see S: on your snip??

if you open "msconfig" go to boot what does it read.
post plz

Eviellan · 20 Oct 2009

aem said:

If you don't mind erasing W7 (format it's partition), i'd do it and see if the system can revert back to Xp. How you install your orginal OS might dictate whether this will work or not. Note: do it at your own risk :)

I already did something similar to this, I had EasyBCD delete the vista bootsector (so XP would take over) and rebooted.
It said something like "NTLDR is missing". I tried to use the repair utility from the XP disc (bootcfg /rebuild), but it said that the XP drive had "one or more irrecuperable errors".
I can access that drive all right, so I'm guessing the problem is that it's marked as a logical partition. No idea how to fix that.

Eviellan · 20 Oct 2009

Snuffy said:

Ok, strange because that is also how I dual boot.
and my N: with Win7 stays N:
Vista stays C: no matter what I do.

>Sure, that's how I expected it to work...

where is you {bootmgr}
cmd ( as admin} bcdedit scan to find {bootmgr}

>I don't understand what you want me to type in cmd. "bcdedit scan" and "bcdedit /scan" did nothing.

I did not see S: on your snip??

>S: is now C:, for reasons I'll never understand.

if you open "msconfig" go to boot what does it read.
post plz

>Windows Vista (C:\Windows): Current OS, default OS.

10char

Snufffed · 20 Oct 2009

AEM help screw it further... maybe he can help you fix.
If you not very careful you will end up FORMAT and CLEAN INSTALL.

gregrocker · 20 Oct 2009

I wonder if the error is that neither XP or Vista is marked active, but instead your storage partitions are.

I'd mark the Win7 active and run startup repair 2-3 times until it starts. If that fails, boot back into Repair Command Line and run "bootrec.exe /fixboot" and "bootrec.exe /fixmbr" or if those don't work "Bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force".

Once you get your Win7 running, try EasyBCD again to add XP.

If that fails, I'd spend some time troubleshooting my Windows 7 issues here. You can always reinstall XP or find another method to recover its boot later after you test drive 7 awhile. It is the future.

aem · 20 Oct 2009

I highly doubt imaging your Xp logical drive and dumping it on a new parition will do u any good. For this to have hope, you need the boot files in it and that means you can boot to it.

You already did something similar? why not do extact? format/nuke your w7 partition from disk manager....now....hehehe.

aem · 20 Oct 2009

Snuffy said:

AEM help screw it further... maybe he can help you fix.
If you not very careful you will end up FORMAT and CLEAN INSTALL.

Did i? How ?

Eviellan · 20 Oct 2009

"Perhaps you can mark XP active"
Can't mark a logical partition as active.

"I highly doubt imaging your Xp logical drive and dumping it on a new parition will do u any good. For this to have hope, you need the boot files in it and that means you can boot to it."
The point of that was having XP in a primary partition, where (hopefully) I can fix it with the XP disk.