Dual boot nightmare


  1. Posts : 47
    Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
       #1

    Dual boot nightmare


    I recently had windows 7 ultimate installed okay, so I decide to install windows xp ultimate as a dual boot...easy yes...well I burnt an img file of XP to a bootable dvd right..I restart my computer boot from dvd and proceed to install XP...1 problem I forgot to partition the drive before installing and I for some reason did not notice and I installed the OS to the HP: recovery drive if anyone is familiar with that it comes as a extra drive with most HP computers as a backup drive. the OS failed to install for some strange reason and now when I restart it prompts me to windows Xp loading screen and does not allow me to change between dual boot..After the loading screen i get the blue screen of death basically telling me i should CHKDSK my drive and so on. This repeats itself as it restarts my computer over and over...Any hints on how I can fix the corruoted OS so I can load my windows 7 again without losing all my data? Would be greatly appreciated
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 1,261
    Windows 7 Professional 32-bit SP1
       #2

    KCINREBAK said:
    I recently had windows 7 ultimate installed okay, so I decide to install windows xp ultimate as a dual boot...easy yes...well I burnt an img file of XP to a bootable dvd right..I restart my computer boot from dvd and proceed to install XP...1 problem I forgot to partition the drive before installing and I for some reason did not notice and I installed the OS to the HP: recovery drive if anyone is familiar with that it comes as a extra drive with most HP computers as a backup drive. the OS failed to install for some strange reason and now when I restart it prompts me to windows Xp loading screen and does not allow me to change between dual boot..After the loading screen i get the blue screen of death basically telling me i should CHKDSK my drive and so on. This repeats itself as it restarts my computer over and over...Any hints on how I can fix the corruoted OS so I can load my windows 7 again without losing all my data? Would be greatly appreciated

    This is a tough one, and in my line of work is usually used as an example lesson to always create your recovery disks for you computer before you start messing with it. The Recovery Disks are essentially DVD backups of the recovery partition that you can use if for whatever reason the partition become corrupted.

    You DID create your recovery dvds, didn't you?

    But even if you did, they usually wipe the hard drive clean, including all user data. If it is possible to do so, I would remove the hard drive temporarily and mount it into a working pc as an external hard disk. From there I would recover whatever data I could, return the hard drive back to the laptop and then run the recovery software.

    One other tip. Dual boot works best if you install the Operating Systems from oldest to newest, especially in the case of wanting to dual boot XP and Vista/7. If Vista/7 is already installed, you will need a third-party utility to assit with the installation of XP.
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  3. Posts : 47
    Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Any other tips for gettting my data back without taking the hard drive out..I cant even boot from dvd to install a new OS
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  4. aem
    Posts : 2,698
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit
       #4

    "the OS failed to install for some strange reason and now when I restart it prompts me to windows Xp loading screen and does not allow me to change between dual boot.."

    So you mean to say you get to the boot manager, but you cannot select W7, rather it just goes straight to Xp?
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 47
    Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate
    Thread Starter
       #5

    Yes, See the reason i put the OS in the recovery drive was because i installed ubuntu with no problems on the same drive so i figured it would work right. But yeah it just says loading windows xp then i get that blue error screen then it just retstars again
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  6. aem
    Posts : 2,698
    Windows 7 Ultimate 64Bit
       #6

    I don't like your chances, with the BSOD. This recovery drive, is it part of the physical HDD or a separate drive?
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 29
    Win 7 64, OSX Snow Leopard
       #7

    Your MBR is corrupted (or overwritten with the XP one)

    To get your data back, boot into a live linux like Ubuntu, Xubuntu etc and copy your data onto an external HDD or USB drive.

    To fix your boot problem, boot with your Windows 7 DVD, go to Command line and fix the MBR. and the commands are

    bootrec /FixMbr - to rewrite the Windows 7 Mbr

    Type Y when prompted for

    bootrec /FixBoot - to fix the boot problem

    take the DVD out and restart the system, your done.
      My Computer


 

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