Win 7 System will not dual boot Win XP with Easy BCD

rhinse · 17 Jan 2019

This may not be quite the proper forum for this question, but I don't have anywhere else to go to ask.

I had setup a dual boot system on my Win 7 operating system with Windows XP on a separate HD using Easy BCD. Everything worked fine until I started getting odd startup messages like "Can't read such and such" and finally I just
got "99 99 99 99 99" etc. and win 7 would not boot. I think the hard drive is bad so removed it and tried
to bootup Win XP with only the separate HD in place. Since this separate HD was pulled from another computer
that booted just fine, I thought it should boot again in the machine I am currently using. It does not. All I get is
"99 99 99 99 99" etc. again.

I plan on getting a new HD on which to install Win 7 but I need to use something in the meantime, preferably the

Win XP system.

Could anyone suggest a solution to fixing the Win XP boot?

Paul Black · 20 Jan 2019

Hi rhinse,

rhinse said:

This may not be quite the proper forum for this question, but I don't have anywhere else to go to ask. I had setup a dual boot system on my Win 7 operating system with Windows XP on a separate HD using Easy BCD. Everything worked fine until I started getting odd startup messages like "Can't read such and such" and finally I just got "99 99 99 99 99" etc. and win 7 would not boot. I think the hard drive is bad so removed it and tried to bootup Win XP with only the separate HD in place. Since this separate HD was pulled from another computer that booted just fine, I thought it should boot again in the machine I am currently using. It does not. All I get is "99 99 99 99 99" etc. again. I plan on getting a new HD on which to install Win 7 but I need to use something in the meantime, preferably the Win XP system. Could anyone suggest a solution to fixing the Win XP boot?

I noticed that you have not had a reply, so I thought I would see if I could find anything on Google related to your issue.
I found this which might or might not be of any use => AnAndTech.

vineyridge · 20 Jan 2019

I've been living in MBR hell for two weeks. I finally got everything fixed by using MiniTools Partition Wizard. It an MBR repair tool that you can use to correct the MBR on all disks. But I had a functional Windows system to install it and run it from.

You could download and burn Boot-Repair-Disk which is a boot device that can repair MBRs if you don't have an XP install disk to get you to recovery.

Also be sure and check your BIOS boot order.

townsbg · 21 Jan 2019

You can do a repair from a windows 7 installation disk or a recovery disk. You can't use an XP disk.

rhinse · 22 Jan 2019

Thanks all! I had been using an old version of SystemRescueCD to access the unbootable Win XP HD to pull off
important files that I needed to access. I have not used the CD for much before except copying files from bad
HD's so I was not familiar with all the tools provided. Fortunately, after some reading, I came upon 'TestDisk' which
will repair partition tables and recreate the MBR. Once I ran that tool, Win XP booted.

Paul Black · 22 Jan 2019

Hi rhinse,

rhinse said:

Thanks all! I had been using an old version of SystemRescueCD to access the unbootable Win XP HD to pull off important files that I needed to access. I have not used the CD for much before except copying files from bad HD's so I was not familiar with all the tools provided. Fortunately, after some reading, I came upon 'TestDisk' which will repair partition tables and recreate the MBR. Once I ran that tool, Win XP booted.

I am glad that you have resolved your issue. Thanks for sharing the solution, it will help others visiting this thread that have the same problem/question. Please mark this thread as Solved!