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    Dual boot - Pulling my hair out!

    Discussion in 'Dell XPS and Studio XPS' started by madocks, Jul 22, 2008.

  1. madocks

    madocks Newbie

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    So i bought a new laptop which came with Vista pre installed. I quite like vista but i need xp, I want to install and use Catia on my laptop which doesnt work with vista. Its not supported on vista and there wont be a vista release for the near future, heres what I did........

    Downloaded all xp drivers and burn to cd
    Formatted the recovery partition (10 Gig) and called it xp
    Rebooted pc and booted off xp disk, installed xp to the xp partition
    Pc loaded up, xp installed , Yay :)

    Reboot... hmm, goes into xp, reboot again, no menu to choose which OS to boot. Phone friend!!!!

    Friend tells me to download and run Vistabootpdr
    I hand over control of laptop to friend using msn assistant
    He clicks a few boxes, hands control back

    Reboot...... menu there, i select vista, enter windows, its back to normal

    Reboot ...... menu there, i selext xp , get error message about a missing NTLDR file

    Reboot ....... boot off xp cd to try the repair console thingy, tells me no HDD's are found.


    I am now clueless.... personally i think the XP is trying to boot off the wrong partition, its there, all the files are there and it booted yesterday. I dont think the NTLDR is corrup, i just think the pc thinks its missing cos its looking in the wrong area.

    Ive tried a few settings myself in vistabootpdr, but it still wont boot.

    Any ideas
     
    madocks, Jul 22, 2008
    #1
  2. vashts121

    vashts121 Notebook Evangelist

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    Put the XP cd in, go into the recovery console, select the partition and type 'chkdsk /f'. It should scan and fix any errors it finds.
     
    vashts121, Jul 22, 2008
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  3. madocks

    madocks Newbie

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    cant it tells me that theres no hdd on the pc, when clearly i am typing to you and in vista, silly pc
     
    madocks, Jul 22, 2008
    #3
  4. vashts121

    vashts121 Notebook Evangelist

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    Can you access the XP partition inside of Vista?
     
    vashts121, Jul 22, 2008
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  5. madocks

    madocks Newbie

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    yes, ive done a chkdsk thru the cmd window and it was fine
     
    madocks, Jul 22, 2008
    #5
  6. vashts121

    vashts121 Notebook Evangelist

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    Hmm, ok well download this, then burn it as bootable. Boot up via CD and it should fix the problem.
     
    vashts121, Jul 22, 2008
    #6
  7. paper_wastage

    paper_wastage Beat this 7x7x7 Cube

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    i recommend u using Vista's boot loader

    1) put in ur vista disc, click on the 'repair my system'
    2) if u cant find ur system, just continue
    3) open the consnole, type:
    select disk 0
    select partition 1(put vista’s partition’s number)
    active
    exit

    this is to mark the Vista partition active so that the BIOS and Vista CD can read the boot mgr...when u installed XP, Xp probably de-activated Vista partition
    4) go back to the page(where u cant find ur hard drive)... u should see the hard disc now
    5) repair and reboot into Vista
    6) download EasyBCD... and make a new boot list for XP

    PM me if u need more info, i have tried dualing Vista and mac os ;P
     
    paper_wastage, Jul 22, 2008
    #7
  8. jesse6749

    jesse6749 Notebook Deity

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    The only way I could ever get dual boot to work and I am running that on my desktop system now, is to first have XP installed and working then install vista afterwards, if you do it this way you should have no problems. It's how I did it on my desktop system and I had no problems.
     
    jesse6749, Jul 22, 2008
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  9. Entropic

    Entropic Notebook Guru

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    I've always heard this advice as well. Always install the oldest OS first and move forward that way.
     
    Entropic, Jul 22, 2008
    #9