Problems? See this thread at archive.org.
Would appreciate advice on steps to recover a Win XP boot.
My BIOS has SATA driver modes "AHCI" and "Compatability",
at present Vista boots under "AHCI" and hangs under "Compatability".
My objective is to dual boot Win XP Pro with the preinstalled Vista Home Premium on my wife's new ThinkPad SL500.
This would suit compatibility with her office environment, where she uses a Win XP Pro system, but offer her the
opportunity to learn to use Vista, when it suits.
My general approach followed
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm
I now have a fully functioning Vista and full access to the Windows XP Pro partition, but no boot to XP Pro
Here's what I did:
[APC guide page 2]. Booted into Vista on the new PC,
found three existing NTFS disk partitions, under Vista labelled:
C: SW_Preload 221 GB (DISKPART disk 2, Linux sda2)
S: SERVICEV003 1.5 GB (boot) (DISKPART disk 1, Linux sda1)
Q: Lenovo 9.8 GB (recovery, includes SWTOOLS) (disk 3, sda4)
Then shrink C: drive, Dual Boot Guide (Page 2) using DISKPART.
Reduces C: to 111 GB.
Burned recovery CD and DVDs using the ThinkVantage recovery software.
Also burned folders DRIVERS, etc
SATA mode was AHCI during this step. BIOS is Lenovo dated 9/5/2008
(i.e. 5 September I think).
[guide page 3] After changing BIOS SATA mode to COMPATABILITY, installed WinXP Pro CD, creating a new NTFS partition.
Installed drivers, following "Windows XP Clean Install/Downgrade Guide"
at http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=188992
Specifically (as best I recall):
Using WindowsUpdate installed ethernet driver for internet connection, SP2 (and later SP3), .Net2;
Installed ThinkVantage System Update tool, used it to install chip driver, and then most others identified above,
with the exception of the Intel Matrix driver (for SATA AHCI controller): installation failed for me
on following the procedure listed.
After this step Win XP Pro was booting fine and seeing all drives.
Thinking I could still boot in under "Compatibility" using EasyBCD (See page 4),
or easily use my Win XP disk to repair the boot, (BIG MISTAKE!!), I continued to the next step of the guide.
Subsequently I found these links on installing the SATA controller driver under Win XP Pro on Lenovo SL500:
http://forums.lenovo.com/lnv/board/...inkPads&view=by_date_ascending&message.id=255
[guide page 4] Restored BIOS mode to "AHCI" and rebooted Vista, "repaired" the MBR, installed EasyBCD
and set up the menu for dual boot.
However, on reboot, the EasyBCD selection screen flashes by and either:
o boots to Vista with Bios Mode AHCI;
o reboots continuously in Compatibility Mode.
I then tried repairing Win XP Pro, booting from its disk, found two boot systems identified (poorly) and
managed to get a DOS window under XP. With no experience of repairing Windows boots, I was now stuck!
(I believe its sommething to do with files Ntldr, NDETECT.COM and boot.ini, but couldn't find boot.ini
and wouldn't know what to do with them, had problem with DOS with names including inserted spaces like "Program Files").
Also read it is possible to use the disk install to go a stage further (not choosing Repair) to recognise the
installed system, but that proceeding would lose all upgrades, drivers, etc. Didn't want this either.
See also:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Host_Controller_Interface#cite_note-1
-
-
Hi
Brief note to report back and confirm that the plan below succeeded in repair of Windows XP
and install of Intel Matrix Storage XP drivers. A few further brief comments:
In step 0, download the SP3 .exe from Microsoft site, choosing the option for multiple installs (IT staff) to avoid automatic installations.
Step 2 worked fine to offer a recovery console,
fixmbr abd fixboot offered dire warnings, which I just ignored,
and they fixed the WinXP boot without further ado (booting
under bios mode "Compatability" as in step 3, no need for gParted).
My WinXP partition is assigned drive G:, the other NTFS drives (original Vista installation) were assigned C: (boot), D
user), F
recovery).
hmh
So here's the plan:
0. Execute driver download
> 6ai108ww.exe -a
to assign the drivers and locate the .inf files under Driver\.
I also need to find the SP3 files/folder installed in earlier Win XP Pro upgrades (on drive D).
1. Use nLite on a Win XP PC to slipstream a boot CD with all this stuff (Win XP Pro ++ below), following
[links]
May need to identify the need for a recovery console in the nLite options.
2. Now boot up the Vista laptop (BIOS mode still AHCI) from the win XP Pro ++ boot CD.
If it offers XP Pro Repair option, take it,
and in the recovery console, both:
> fixmbr
> fixboot
(expect this to kill the Vista boot record on disk's MBR).
Shutdown.
3. Boot gParted CD and set the boot flag to D. Reboot and see if win XP Pro now boots off partition D.
If it doesn't, SATA driver is still missing,
- so change BIOS mode to Compatibility (IDE), reboot into XP Pro as Administrator, run the 6ai108ww.exe -a
- if this works, install the AHCI/SATA driver using Device Manager, identifying the driver folder specifically.
- reboot, changing BIOS mode back to AHCI.
4. If it does, I should have my previously installed XP Pro system (previous post) recovered,
but have spoiled the Vista boot.
5. Now return to the APC guide dual boot instructions (previous post) to fix the Vista boot, and notice XP Pro
"Repaired" Vista boot, lost Win XP boot
Discussion in 'Lenovo' started by hmhxmu, Oct 11, 2008.
