How to recover lost Xp boot partition ?

The problem is that your System Active partition has been derailed into F: Downloads partition, there is no System Reserved boot partition to recover it into, and Win7 is presently a Logical partition which cannot be marked Active to recover System MBR. .

Use free Partition Wizard bootable CD to convert Win7 partition from Logical to Primary, mark it active, mark F: inactive, then use Win7 DVD to recover MBR into Win7.

Boot PW, allow files to load, select 1 for screen res, right click on Win7 partition>Modify>Set Partition to Primary, OK. Then rightclick Win7 again>Modify>Set to Active, OK.

Now rightclick F: Downloads partition>Modify>Set to Inactive, OK. Apply all steps.

Win7 will not now boot. Instead boot Win7 DVD, select Repair on second screen, click through to Recovery tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times as it will attempt to repair and finally write System MBR to Win7 partition.

Finally, from Win7 use EasyBCD 2.0 beta to Add XP as given earlier.

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I made everything that you said, still doesnt work After i repaired the startup with the Win7 DVD my Downloads partition got marked active again ( dont know whether it supposed to be so ) and when i did the EasyBCD part, and restarted and booted Xp, it said that hal.dll is missing or damaged.

Here is how it looks like currently:

There are a total of 2 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Windows 7 Ultimate (recovered)
Timeout: 30 seconds.
Boot Drive: F:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7 Ultimate (recovered)
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {56ec5814-37d4-11df-8e58-d9b6b97f8c41}
Device: boot
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR



Should i set the F: ( downloads ) partition inactive again?

Run Partition Wizard from desktop to mark Downloads partition Inactive again, OK, Apply, Confirm.

Then shut down, unplug Disk0 and either swap its cable to Disk1 or enter BIOS setup to Set Disk1 (Win7) as first HD to boot, after DVD.

Now boot the Win7 DVD to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times to force repair to recover System MBR to Win7 partition which is already marked Active.

After Win7 starts, shut down and replug Disk0, preferably into Disk1 slot now since Win7 installer/repair looks for first active drive to place the MBR and Downloads is somehow marking itself active.

i did it again, but after the repair if the volume containing the downloads partition is not connected, and i wanna boot win7, it says that the NTLDR is missing. I plugged the other HDD again, and it still didnt start, said the hal.dll is damaged or missing. So the only way to boot win7 is when the downloads partition is active.

Thanks for trying to help, but i had now nuff from this, i will format the downloads and the XP and Win7partitions and reinstall everything, i aint got no time for playin around with this shit.

Are you running Startup Repair from the Win7 DVD Repair console or Repair CD at least 3 separate times with reboots?

This is not the offered repair when you first boot in, but you must click through to Recovery Tools to select Startup Repair repeatedly after running the offered repair.

It requires running repeatedly because it attempts to repair the MBR first and assumes that fixes it unless you try again when it will eventually write the MBR to the new partition. It takes 3 tries in most cases.

The reason I ask is that some will only attempt the repair once or twice and then assume it won' work, but it will always work to write the MBR to the active partition if Win7 is intact and not damaged.