W3J with Vista / XP dualboot. need help.

Ok, I admit defeat, i'm completely stumped now. Vista now boots without issue on my notebook, no problems there. But XP, oohhh XP. why hast thou forsaken me??? Here's a run down of my current set-up.

I wiped the HDD yesterday (including the recovery partition (DOH!)) so my hdd is structured as follows:

C: (50Gb) FAT32 - XP Partition - installed first using the recovery discs (Recover to first partition option chosen)

D: (35Gb) NTFS - Vista Partition - installed using the MBR Hack mentioned in Reis' post - http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=81928 - followed instructions to the letter – no problems encountered.

E: (8Gb) NTFS - For Swap files / Temp Storage.

So I’ve got the most basic settings, nice fresh installs, on both os's but choosing Earlier OS on the bootloader just gets the machine to a black screen, no instant re-boot but no way to restart other than power button.

Any ideas?

I'm going to try converting the XP partition to NTFS but beyond that I’m at a total loss. please help…

 

Minor Update, still having same issue, I’ve converted C: to NTFS now using vista command prompt:

Convert c: /FS:NTFS

completed without problem and Vista picks up the drive as NTFS now.

I’m still getting a black screen when trying to boot XP, but if I select earlier OS and immediately hit F8 I can invoke the XP Advanced boot menu, choosing safe mode loads as far as “drvmain.sdb” which is only the 10th entry, and then appears to hang, no hdd activity, no ctrl, alt and del, only able to use power button to restart.

Can anyone help me?

 

Please, Can anyone who's already set up dual boot on their W3J tell me what i'm doing wrong.

 

You are not doing anything wrong, we just need to wait for a BIOS update from ASUS. I am very annoyed that they have issued updates for other, less expensive or less popular systems, but no word on the one for w3j...