XP x86 and 7 x64 dual boot issue

[Kirki]

Hi,

Been reading many posts here to see if they could help me with a problem but couldn't find a definitive answer.

I have XP Sp3 32-bit on my main HDD, been using it fine for quite some time, and I wanted to try 7, so I bought a new HDD and installed W7 RC 64-bit on it. I then setup the dual boot and everything was working fine - I could chose which to load up, both were working fine, and I could see the W7 files while working on XP and vice-versa. I then got more confortable using W7 (as most people here, no doubt, cause it is bril ) and started using more and more often, to the point of copying loads of files from my XP disk (My Docs, Videos, Music, Favourites etc) onto the W7 disk so I could have them handy.

Then after a few days I noticed my XP installation started crashing every now and again. It's got progressively worse to the point my XP installation is not loading up at the moment - XP loads all the way up to displaying my desktop wallpaper picture and then freezes. Nothing happens for quite some time and I end up having to swich it off.

When I try to boot into XP again it goes into CHKDSK, it does it's thing for a good length of time and then when it loads XP it freezes on the desktop wallpaper again. Safe mode works fine and everything seems in order, but when I try the real thing it freezes again.

I'm very security conscious, but to eliminate this option I've ran a few AV and Malware programs and nothing found on both disks, so I'm confident this is not the problem. The XP disk itself also seems fine - cause if I load W7 I can see all the files currently on the XP disk, no problem opening/copying them and nothing has been lost.

Anyone know of any known issues of mixing XP (32) and 7 (64) OS? Something to do with how they handle file structures, indexes etc for example? Could my XP be getting system files mixed up with the W7 installation? Or W7 writting files that corrupt the XP file system? Should I have kept XP disk hidden from W7 in the first place?

Don't know what else to try but I need to run XP (due to 3D software) and didn't want to get rid of W7...

Thanks in advance.

 

[sup3rsprt]

I do not like the fact that defrag is scheduled by default. I think it might cause problems and perhaps it's possible that it was the thing that bit you.

For what it's worth, I've disabled the scheduled defrag before it had a chance to run and my XP x86 and Win7 x64 have been living together fine.

 

[Frostbite]

There shouldn't be a problem running those 2 together. How have you got your partitions setup? Have you tried running chkdsk from Windows 7 on the WinXP partition?

 

[Kirki]

@sup3rsprt - wasnt aware of this so will have a look and make sure it is not on the schedule (just in case).

@Frostbite - not sure how to attach image with the partition info (newbies eh) but will give it a try. After the problems started I did try to run CHKDSK from within W7 once - it said it had to unmount the XP partition (seen on W7 as D which I agreed to, then it did it's thing but the problems persisted, didn't make any difference. Will try it again and see if I can get hold of a log file detailing what was done.

 

[Night Hawk]

By the looks of the partitioning there you installed 7 on the second partition instead of the first on the new drive as well as leaving unallocated empty drive space at the back end on both. There's inconsistencies resulting in seeing the disk check tool being run on each startup.

What did you use to partition the drives with? The C and E partitions on the second drive would have been better setup as one larger single primary for 7 there. The H partition can be expanded into the large gap seen at the back end of that drive.

The 8mb at the tail end of the XP primary is minor while you wouldn't likely be seeing a dynamic volume since most desktops use the basic type. And no your XP system files are not getting mixed in with the ones for the 7 installation. You'll want to review the excellent tutorial written for setting up a dual boot of XP along with 7. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html

I had both the 32bit and 64bit 7 beta builds setup in a dual boot with XP and Vista(both 32bit) with each 7(32/64) on the second primary of each drive one for XP, one for Vista until the RCs were out. XP is now a forgotten memory while Vista is run on the new Virtual PC beta.

Presently here there are two 64bit installations on separate drives set up in a 3way boot with the 32bit RC along with two other large capacity storage drives. The second 64bit installation(former XP drive) was also a stand alone dual boot setup with the 32bit RC(former Vista drive).

 

[SIW2]

Hi ,

If XP loads fine in Safe Mode - there's something wrong with one of the programs / drivers that load at normal XP startup.

Try the clean boot procedure to see if you can identify the culprit.

How to configure Windows XP to start in a "clean boot" state

How to perform advanced clean-boot troubleshooting in Windows XP

 

[Night Hawk]

A few good tips for using the msconfig utility.

 

[sup3rsprt]

people still use msconfig with Autoruns around? eek!

 

[Night Hawk]

There are other methods to consider like setting services to manual rather then automatic to help out in solving start up problems. With the XP disk in the drive another old tool is the system file checker you run by typing "sfc /scannow" in at the Run command line.

One of the main problems I see right off however is a need to check the fragmentation level on the XP drive as well as the likely need to recall any recent updates like video or sound drivers that went on XP. Taking notes if any errors show up as well as a look in the XP event viewer can often help pinpointing a problem.

 

[Kirki]

Night Hawk and SIW2 - thanks for your replies, got some useful info there. I'll go through them again when I get home tonight and post some more info to let you know what happened.

As for the partitions E, C, H on the 2nd HDD:
I created _BKP right after installing the new drive and before installing 7, so I could store some large DVD files as the XP partition was filling up. Didn't think this would cause any problems at the time...
As for _BKP2 I created this once I started having these problems with XP. The _BKP wasn't big enought to salvage all my personal files currently on the XP drive. It's only a temporary measure though - and as soon as I have everything working stable again I may just remove _BKP2 and expand the _Win7 to take the rest of the disk.

 

[Night Hawk]

The copy of your partitioning here will show a proposed repartitioning idea to covert the first two partitions into one larger primary for 7 as well utilizing the vacant unallocated drive space at the back end on Drive #2.

You would first expand the last H partition into that space where you then move the contents on E to H. From there you would simply need a new 7 install onto the larger single primary used to replace the present E + C partitions. Once you start loading 7 up with programs you'll want the extra space for the primary there.

Unfortunately the penmanship using a trackball is a little ruff for illustrating things however! :shock:

 

[Kirki]

Thanks for the suggestion Night Hawk, might end up doing that - and you did rather well scribbling with a trackball. hehe.

As for my problems last couple of nights I've been logging into XP in safe mode and checking events, removing things from the startup, ran CHKDSK again and defragged the XP drive, ran SeaTools to check the disk (it passed) - so tonight I'll give XP a proper go again to see if it's still alive. Fingers crossed...

The one thing that caught my attention when looking at the events however was this warning: "An error was detected on device \Device\Harddisk0\D during a paging operation" - had this event 8 times. Trying to find out more on Google, but has anyone seen kind of thing before?

Also, another question: my XP has been updated via MS updates to SP3, but my install disk is a few years old and only up to SP2. Would that cause any problems if I decided to run a Repair installation using that CD? Or would this simply revert my XP back to SP2?

Thanks again for helping me out. Much appreciated.

 

[Night Hawk]

The first thing if a repair install will even work would be rolling the system back from the SP3 update. To effectively perform a repair install with it on you would need an SP3 disk instead.

Each large service makes quite a few changes where a roll back would be the only option to avoid a complete full install if it works. With the paging file error being seen it could also point out the drive getting filled sooner then you realized just before the "out of memory" error comes up or you may some bad sectors on the first drive itself.

One option available and even used by some gamers running XP was to disable the creation of the paging file entirely to see if that helps out any. If you are running out of drive space used for virtual memory that could be part of the problem preventing a normal startup.