Dual installation XP and 7

[StayOkay]

Hi all,

I have the following problem.
After installing Windows 7 on my XP machine I tried to start "Earlier version of Windows" I only get a blinking cursor in the upper left corner of my screen.
Starting Windows 7 goes fine.
Here's how my hard disk looks like: (see attachement)
On the volume with no drive letter are all the boot files, XP and 7, alongside.
On D: is XP and on C: is Win7.
Strange thing is that I don't remember to have that volume with no drive letter before I installed windows 7.
There is content on that volume which belonged to D: if I remember correctly.
Further more Win7 has the status of Boot but not Active, the nameless volume is System and Active and both are primary partitions. D: is not.
So why can it boot Windows 7 and not XP?
I think that first the nameless volume is being accessed and it starts whatever has been chosen in the boot menu but it can only start Windows 7 maybe because Volume c is marked as Boot and on a primary partition and XP is none of that.
The installation of Windows 7 created this.

I have installed Easybcd.
Will this help me to solve the problem?
If I can'tmake the dual boot to work how can I safely remove Windows 7 and boot XP to have it another go?

 

[ickymay]

right click computer/manage/disk management and click the blank drive and assign it a letter then see how you progress

In easybcd after you have got a drive letter assigned and reebooted you can Create a Dual Boot Menu to include XP , instructions here

 

[StayOkay]

Ickymay, thanks for your reply, but I already tried it with a drive letter, still no go.
Using easybcd to create a dual boot menu is not neccessary because I installed Windows 7 on a machine with XP already installed.
One of my questions is: is it possible to boot XP when you look at my volumes?
The volume with XP on it is not a primary but a logical one.

 

[ickymay]

Ickymay, thanks for your reply, but I already tried it with a drive letter, still no go.
Using easybcd to create a dual boot menu is not neccessary because I installed Windows 7 on a machine with XP already installed.
One of my questions is: is it possible to boot XP when you look at my volumes?
The volume with XP on it is not a primary but a logical one.

yes all a boot menu does is point to the file that boots any OS on any drive but I reckon installing win 7 has changed some of the references in the boot file and need adjusting so they point to the right places

I would check those post's for reference and use easybcd to reset everything to give you a dual boot choice

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

A Logical drive can be a boot partition. It will only show as boot in Disk Management if you are currently booted into it.

It seems there is something wrong either with the bcd entry, or with boot.ini.

First have a look at boot. ini. Right click and select Edit - it is a text file - it needs to point to the hard drive and partition XP is on.

Give the System partition a drive letter, open an elevated command prompt, type:

bcdedit {enter}

then post the results - a screenshot will be fine.

A full screenshot of Disk Management window would be nice, also, like this:

 

[StayOkay]

Thanks SIW2,

Here is the info you were asking for: see attachements.

 

[Snufffed]

If you look at your 1st pic. read carefully you have DEFAULT marked on two different partitions. You can only have 1 current and only 1 default. even if both are current,default at the same time.
i suggest you use MSCONFIG --> boot then it is really EASY TO ADD-delete-modify your setting.

 

[SIW2]

Hi Stayokay,

You should have bootmgr and bootloader showing as {current}, even if they are on different partitions - so that bit looks ok.

Can you go to Folder Options, show hidden files and protected operating system files, then have a look at J and check the boot.ini configuration.

See if it says something like this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)

Easier to post a screesnshot of J , so we can see all the bootfiles, and also post the contents of boot.ini.

If the XP bootfiles are on J, then the ntldr entry in bcd should also be for J, not D.

 

[StayOkay]

Oke SIW2,

this is wat my boot.ini and J: looks like:

I have also placed the ntldr on D:.

Hope this will help you further.

Thanks again for your help.

 

[SIW2]

That looks ok.

You need to keep ntldr where it is - on J. If you have copied it to D, that doesn't matter as it is still on J as well.

If you have moved it to D, then you need to move it back to J.

If you are using Easybcd , first remove the existing entry for Earlier version of Windows.

Then use Easybcd to create a new Earlier version of windows entry - this time point it at partition J.

You can change the name to something else if you like , XP if you prefer - you can do that with Easybcd too.

 

[StayOkay]

Thanks again SIW2,

but the problem stays the same. I end up with a blinking cursor in the upper left corner.
It looks like the boot process finds the ntldr but it doesn't know where to find the rest of the boot files or Windows XP for that matter.
With the installation of Win 7 something has been broken.
How can I fix this? Do you have any more ideas?
Is there a way back? How to deinstall Win7 and go back to XP and then try it again with Win7?
Does Win 7 make use of a ntldr anyway?
Why are all the boot files on another partition then the system files?
I know a lot of questions, I hope you have some answers?

Thnx Frits

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

If Bcd is pointing to Ntldr, and boot.ini is pointing to the location of Xp, then I don't know what is causing the problem.

The bootfiles will always be installed on the partition that is marked Active at the time of installation.

The o/s files will be installed on whichever partition you pointed them at during the installation - not necesssarily the Active partition. That is how it should be.

NT6 o/s (Vista and Win7) use bootmgr and Bcd.

XP uses ntldr and boot.ini.

Hope it helps

 

[StayOkay]

SIW2,

I can't get it to work. I'am afraid that some actions in the past on this drive, dual boot Linux-XP and re-partioning, did something to the partitions.
It's not that a problem. The pc is being used by my kids (games) and for testing os's. It seems like I will be using Win7 earlier than expected.
Thanks again for your help.