XP Dual Boot issue - 200mb System Partition

[shotcaller88]

My Lenovo y450 notebook came with Win7 Premium x64 installed. I set it up to Dual Boot with XP Pro. I used EasyBCD and everything went rather smoothly.
My issue is that XP recognized the 200mb System partition (created by the factory install of win7) as the C partition. This causes issues when attempting to install the XP drivers as they try to extract to the C partition. The driver installation error instructs me to free up more space on the C partition. Note: XP is installed on the D partition.
I have tried several things and after much research, I'm not quite sure what to do. I assigned a drive letter ('S') to the 200mb partition in win7. This didn't change anything in XP. I cannot reassign the drive letter in XP because it is a system drive. I know you can change drive letters of system drives via the registry, however I fear this may screw with the boot files.
Is there any known fix for this? I do not mind installing XP again, if necessary. I was thinking about using a partition utility to temporarily expand the 200mb partition to allow enough space to extract the XP drivers. However, I fear I may encounter other issues in the future with XP installed on the D partition.

Thank you very much for any helpful replies.

 

[Pauly]

Have a read through the second section of this tutorial
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html?filter

 

[gregrocker]

Can you please post back a screenshot of your full Disk Management drive map, using SNipping Tool in Start Menu, attaching file using paper clip in reply box.

Would you consider: expanding deleted C: Sys Reserved partition to reinstall XP there, then recover the MBR into Win7 using Startup Repair from booted Win7 DVD, add XP back to Dual Boot using EasyBCD 2.0?

 

[Saltgrass]

Having a 200 mb partition in the RTM is a little strange. I wonder if Lenovo added something to the normal 100 mb partition?

 

[gregrocker]

You can check if it is a standard 100mb System Reserved partition by unhiding Hidden Files and Protected OS files in Control Panel>Folder Options>View tab.

It should look like this:



A standard Sys Reserved partition like this can be deleted (or in your case, formatted to be used as a Primary OS partition) and recovered into Win7 partition using Win7 DVD Startup Repair.

 

[shotcaller88]

Thank you very much for the replies. Here are a few screen shots.

Disk Management Win7

Disk Management XP

200mb drive - Win7

 

[shotcaller88]

Would you consider: expanding deleted C: Sys Reserved partition to reinstall XP there, then recover the MBR into Win7 using Startup Repair from booted Win7 DVD, add XP back to Dual Boot using EasyBCD 2.0?

Yes! I would definitely consider that. Sounds like a wonderful idea. If you don't mind, can you take a look at the screen shots I posted and let me know if you think that would work fine?

Having a 200 mb partition in the RTM is a little strange. I wonder if Lenovo added something to the normal 100 mb partition?

The hard drive came from Lenovo with 4 partitions.
1) Win7 - 250gb
2) Drivers - 30gb (just a single folder with drivers)
3) 200mb (hidden)
4) Recovery - 16gb (hidden)

I burned the drivers to disc and used that partition to install XP.

 

[gregrocker]

The 200mb holds the boot files for both Win7 and XP. I would delete it to recover MBR into Win7, then resize Win7 into it's space, make it smaller and create a new XP partition and possibly logical data partition to the right of Win7.

To do this, back up your files and a Win7 system image externally as resizing operations can fail. Make your Recovery Disks if possible from hidden Recovery partition.

Boot Partition Wizard CD, choose 1 for screen resolution, rightclick 200mb>Delete, OK.

Now right click Win7 partition>Modify>Set to Active, then rightclick Resize>drag left border over deleted 200mb space, then drag right border to make room for XP, poss. logical data partition, OK.

Right click unallocated space to create, format XP Primary partition, OK. Ditto Logical Data partition if you wish. Now apply all steps. If necessary, you may need to break these steps into two separate groups.

Boot into Win7 DVD Repair console, click through to Recovery Tools to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times to rewrite MBR to Win7 partition.

Install XP, adding it to Dual Boot Menu by following the steps in Method Two here: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html

 

[shotcaller88]

Wow, seems like a bit of a mission. I'm game though. Thank you so much for the detailed instructions. I greatly appreciate your time. I won't have time to try it out for a few days or more, but I will be sure to report back. Thanks again Greg!

 

[gregrocker]

It seems complicated, but PW makes it easy with graphical interface, slider buttons, cueing up steps before you Apply them at end.

What wraps it up nicely is that Startup Repair in Win7 is automated with all the former bootrec and bootsect commands which had to be typed out. It may require running it up to 3 separate times with reboot as it has multiple issues to fix.

 

[shotcaller88]

Greg, I went ahead and followed your steps. It wasn't as bad as I thought. Everything went extremely smoothly. Then I realized in XP the C drive is the win7 partition. XP is on the d partition. Did I do something wrong?
I went to install some Lenovo drivers and they were trying to overwrite files on the win7 partition.

 

[SIW2]

You didn't do anything wrong.

I notice your original 200mb had a folder called "Drivers" in there, amongst other things. They must something Lenovo put there. Could be the issue now.

What drivers are you installing and why?

What are they trying to overwrite, and where?

 

[shotcaller88]

The drivers folder on the 200mb partition was created when I initially attempted to install the Lenovo drivers. The 200mb was not enough space to complete the installation though.

I followed Greg's instructions and the 200mb partition is now gone.
I need to install several drivers (on XP) wifi, ethernet, audio, video, bluetooth, card reader and more. Nothing is working. They are trying to overwrite the win7 drivers on the C (win7) partition.

**edit**

One thing that I really need to install in XP is the AHCI driver. Right now, I have to go into the Bios and switch it to IDE every time I boot in XP. Then I have to switch it back to AHCI before I boot in win7. If I forget...BSOD.

 

[SIW2]

Is there no option to install the Lenovo XP drivers on D ? Most installers will allow you to browse to an installation directory.

How are you installing them ? Are you booted into XP when you try to install them?

 

[shotcaller88]

No, no options at all. I double click the exe and it begins extracting to C. Yes, I am in XP when attempting to install.
I can now let them install to C, but am hesitant to overwrite the win7 drivers. Especially because I am dual booting XP x86 and Win 7 x64.

 

[gregrocker]

Install your XP drivers from the XP Device manager. Click on the Device, then Driver tab, then Browse to the location where you've unzipped the driver file until you pick up the driver.

Let us know if you need any help. Take your time. The drivers can be installed this way. Just unzip them to XP if you can, but if they unzip to Win7, you can still browse there from the XP Device Manager.

 

[shotcaller88]

You were right, the drivers were just extracting to C:/drivers. I prompted to overwrite the existing files and the installation packs installed into the correct location (d.
I just got everything working 100%. I had to install XP one more time. I used nlite to add the AHCI driver to the installation disc. That worked great.
I also had issues with Realtek HD Audio. I would install the drivers, but upon restarting, there was still no audio device detected. After installing SP3, I installed the Realtek drivers and they worked as they should have.
I then had one more unknown device in device manager. It ended up being an Intel HDMI audio driver. I googled, found the driver and it worked. I probably didn't really need this, but I don't like missing drivers!
Now everything is running nice & smooth. Thanks a ton. I couldn't have done it without your help!