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    windows xp and windows 7 dual boot issue: they won't

    Discussion in 'Windows OS and Software' started by colintyvu, Dec 6, 2012.

  1. colintyvu

    colintyvu Newbie

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    I read the complete step by step how to on setting up dual booting windows 7 and xp. I prepared all my partitions beforehand, and labeled them accordingly so there would be no confusion i. I installed windows 7 on my new SATA drive. Everything went OK, except that I never got a boot menu presented - to 7, it was as if XP was not there i.
    I downloaded and installed, and ran, easybcd, and tried to add the xp menu entry manually. It asks for the drive, and the drive with xp on it is now, under windows 7, drive D (it is E when I boot xp). All necessary files (ntldr, ntdetect.com, boot.ini) are all on this drive. But when I try that menu entry, all the computer does is reboot. It will still only boot windows 7, unless I go into the BIOS settings and change the boot order of the hard drives (in this list, if I make the one with the Win7 partition nr 1, I can boot windows 7 and only that; if I make the one with the XP partition nr 1, I get my regular old boot menu from boot.ini (which also gets me into my wubi install of ubuntu). i
    I would like to be able to boot into XP from the windows 7 boot menu, or, alternately, would like to boot windows 7 from the xp boot menu. (that would be even better). Does anyone have any pointers for me?

    Thanks in advance.
     
    colintyvu, Dec 6, 2012
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  2. Prostar Computer

    Prostar Computer Company Representative

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    I'm not sure I fully understand where things went wrong. The problem that confuses me most is that you said you can only boot from XP or 7 by changing the boot order in BIOS. Normally, this is reserved for different boot media, not selecting partitions; e.g., you select your hard drive as the boot device, and then select your OS once BIOS has handed over control to the MBR.

    You said something about the wubi install of Ubuntu; do you have the grub boot menu show up when you boot into the partition with your Linux partition? I think if you have one primary and one logical partition already, you will need to make a new logical partition for your install. For example: You could have Windows 7 as the primary partition, then Ubuntu as a logical, and XP as another logical.
     
    Prostar Computer, Dec 6, 2012
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