Installing XP after installing 7

Sorry,, I should pay closer attention to the post. My apologies.

You may need to try this after the initial install of Xp, before you complete the first restart...

• Using your Windows 7 installation disc, boot to the command prompt at startup.
• Type in these comands below, and press enter after each one.
  
  • bootrec /FixMbr
  • bootrec /FixBoot
  • bootrec /RebuildBcd
• Exit the command prompt and restart the computer.
• At this point, Windows 7 should boot up the same way before trying to install XP.
• Continue to step 8 below and run EasyBCD from Windows 7 instead.

No, I do not know if this will resolve the issue. But you may need to do this first.

Tepid said:

Sorry,, I should pay closer attention to the post. My apologies.

Meh. Better to keep things straight forward than to go over people's heads.

I am going to give it yet another shot. I will get back with a pass/fail in about 20 minutes.

edit: I got on my laptop and i saw your edit, tepid. I will try that.

edit2: got up to the first restart. Swap discs. On reboot bios give warning about boot order changing, hit f1 continue. I am loading w7 Cd right now.

edit3: ran the commands to fix the boot record. Only thing of note was this line out output

Code:

bootrec /RebuildBcr
Sucessfully scanned Windows Installations
Total identified windows installation: 0

I have run this before to get windows 7 working again and I have seen that line.

edit4: boot again using XP disc. Choose drive(the 37gb one) that I installed windows on. Windows gives me a warning that I am trying to install XP on a drive that already has an OS installed on it.

Back to square one with this.

Try removing the XP partition formatting to use the XP installer to format - it has a slightly different partition table.

The error is unusual. Please post back it's exact text.

Pethegreat said:

theog said:

How many partitions do have on your HD?

Two. One is listed as C(the one that has 7 on it) the other is listed as E(the one I am trying to install XP on)

Are your sure you don't have the 100MB 7 boot partition and a restore partition from the computer manufacturer? I've seen this dozens of times. Both have non-standard partition signatures and sometimes don't show up...

EDIT: Nevermind. It would have shown in disk management.