Dual Boot Installation with Windows 7 and XP

There may be some potential problems with installing sw:

Say, in XP,
you install something with a Batch/Command file that references the Ext drive, which is H:

If the sw is executable under w7, it won't work right (missing files),
because now the Ext drive is G:

The reverse situation (install under w7, run from XP) would produce the same kind of results,
due to the "drive renaming".

There could be undesirable results here, if w7 "writes" to E: Virtual drive, and
the same pgm executed under XP, writes to E:, which is now E: for Windows XP SP3 x86....

Just gotta 'keep an eye out'...
(The old: "Hey, where did it go?", or: "It never did that before!!!")

Hello and thanks in advance for your help.
I got this situation with Dual Booting Windows 7 and Windows XP.
Scenario:
A Laptop with a 320GB HDD, partitioned like in the screenshot (taken from Win7, let me know if it's need one taken from WinXP).


In the second partition I installed WinXP and then (mean after, like in Method Two of this "How To") in the third one I installed Win7. No problems with the installation of Win7.
I've made a backup of my BCD store, and here is the actual output of bcdedit.exe:


Well my problem is like this: If after a reboot I select WinXP in the menu, the next time the system reboot (right after I finish working within WinXP), it presents the next screen:


The "\Boot\BCD", should be in the second partition i.e. the WinXP partition (drive letter "C:"), but it is missing. What I do is, to recover the Win7 through the Recovery Environment from the Win7 DVD Installation. Then manually insert the WinXP ({ntldr}) object to the BCD store, but as I already explained after a WinXP reboot I get this screen, if I reboot and work with Win7 everything goes normal.
So the big question is, how do I fix this...

jimmyj said:

... Then manually insert the WinXP ({ntldr}) object to the BCD store ...

Exactly which 'bcdedit' command do you use for this?

And, what was in that 'First' tiny partition, forcing you to install XP to the 'Second' partition?
Seems the folder: \boot\bcd almost has to be in there.

Can you post the info? Just curious...

SIW2 said:

You should be able to get the dual boot working like this:

Copy and paste ntldr, boot.ini and ntdtect.com from Xp partition onto 7 partition.

In Disk Management , mark 7 partition Active.

Boot 7 dvd and run startup repair 3 times.

7 will now be the System partition.

Add XP entry to bcd .

It doesn't solve the mystery of your physically disappearing Boot folder - but it shouldn't also happen on the 7 partition.

Thank you so much, your solution worked like a charm!. I would like clarify that the Boot folder doesn't disappear physically, just the BCD file (which is the Boot Configuration Data store).