problems installing/dualbooting XP on separate hd

[willxcore]

i upgraded the windows xp, to xp pro SP3 and it broke the boot :[
now when i boot up it says disk read error...

 

[willxcore]

and since i deleted the recovery partition i cant boot back into windows 7 FML
can i load easyBCD from XP and fix it that way?

 

[Saltgrass]

You can run EasyBCD from XP but you have to download .net framework.

I thought you had the Win 7 install DVD. If so, boot to it and do a startup repair.

Did you change the drive order?

I really could not follow exactly what you did to get your system working, so I do not know where you really are now. You might boot back into the partition manager and see if the Active partition has been changed.

 

[willxcore]

to get my system working, i basically did everything you said to do, except, instead of putting those files in the root directory, i put them in the windows directory as well, and in easyBCD, i pointed the windows xp entry to the E drive. then everything magically worked. however my windows xp home wasn't activating, so i upgraded it to a working version of xp pro. but during the installation it had to reboot and it took me to the boot manager, where instead of just having Windows 7 and Windows XP, i now had a 3rd option, Windows XP Professional Setup. i obviously chose that one, because that's what i was trying to do. after it finished installing it rebooted again, and instead of bringing me to the boot manager it says "a disk read error has occurred, press ctrl alt delete to restart" So i restart, inserted the Windows 7 repair disk and let that open up. normally when it opens it shows a list of operating systems to repair and auto detects any errors and tries to fix them. well this time nothing showed up, so i clicked next anyway and it gave me a list different things it could repair. i click startup/boot and it said it attempted and fixed errors and that i should immediately reboot. when i rebooted i got the same error message. However XP works fine if i boot from the secondary hard drive, and it's fully updated and activated now.
I booted into the partition manager just to make sure things looked the same, the only active partition is the Windows 7 one.

 

[willxcore]

also, in XP, it assigns the following drive letters to each partition, Secondary is C: Windows 7 is D: and the XP partition is now F:, and my cd drive is G:

 

[Saltgrass]

Well, using your earlier posted disk management picture, describe if anything has changed, especially which partitions are active, which one is system, etc.

What happens if you boot to the other drive?

Well, according to your last post, the "Secondary" partition, really the first, is now the system partition. This happened probably because it was active. But please go ahead and note any differences in the Disk Management pictures.

 

[gregrocker]

Start Win7 first by booting into Win7 DVD Repair console to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots. If this will not work you need to mark Win7 active by booting Repair console, choosing Command Line to type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (# for Win7 HD)
List Partition
Select Partition # (for Win7 partition)
Active
Exit

Now choose Startup Repair and run up to 3 times with reboots to start win7.
Next post back a screenshot of your full Disk Mgmt map, using Snipping Tool in Start Menu attaching file using Paper Clip in Reply box.