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    OMG MAJOR PROBLEM dual booting!! cannot boot anymore!

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by Moocowz, Mar 6, 2010.

  1. Moocowz

    Moocowz Notebook Guru

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    Ok, so I had teh bright idea to try and install windows XP pro onto a partition on my windows 7 machine. I booted from by USB drive and installed XP to the partition, when I restarted, I get this error:

    windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem.


    On the OS selection menu, ONLY windows XP is listed, NOT windows 7!

    When I put my HDD into an external enclosure, all my data was still on it, so nothing was lost. But I cannot boot to windows 7!!! Do i have to do a fresh install???? What's wrong with my configuration... my boot.ini???
    It seems like it's trying to boot to my partition if that's at all possible and not recognizing the OS on the main partition,

    PLEASE HELP!
     
    Moocowz, Mar 6, 2010
    #1
  2. ronnieb

    ronnieb Representing the Canucks

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    Rule of thumb is to install the older os first, and then the new one, as Win7+Win Vista have a build in partition manager. Go download and burn the gparted live iso, and there should be options of booting into different partitions
     
    ronnieb, Mar 6, 2010
    #2
  3. Moocowz

    Moocowz Notebook Guru

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    well, from someone else's computer I completely wiped the xp partition so all that's left is the 7 partition.... I still get the same error... it must be a be a boot.ini issue... could booting from a windows 7 via a USB drive and doing a repair... maybe...? Or doing a fresh 7 install maybe...?

    On another forum I found someone with a similar problem: Windows Vista/7 doesn't use boot.ini. You have to repair your boot sector so that it loads Windows 7's bootmgr instead of Windows XP's ntldr. I don't really know how to do that, though. It involves the Windows 7 DVD.
    http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-support/2950-windows-7-boot-ini-file.html

    Any suggestions???

    FIXED. I did a repair using Windows 7 bootable from a USB flash drive.... CRISIS AVERTED!
     
    Moocowz, Mar 6, 2010
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  4. Amnesiac

    Amnesiac 404

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    Yep. Soon as I saw the title I thought you had gotten the old XP and 7 thing. All you needed to do was get your installation media, and repair the install. After you repair 7, they both would have worked fine, if you had left XP on there.
     
    Amnesiac, Mar 6, 2010
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  5. newsposter

    newsposter Notebook Virtuoso

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    or...... check out whether or not you should be using something like VirtualBox to host your older operating system(s).

    Pretty much eliminates the booting and used/unused disk space problems of a multiboot solution.
     
    newsposter, Mar 6, 2010
    #5