Dual Booting XP and Win 7

frying_pan_cat · 24 Jun 2009 at 19:07

I have XP on my PC and recently installed Win 7 build 7100. I expected it to see XP and give me an option on startup as to which to boot to but it didn't. Can anyone tell me how to change the bootloader so it will give me and option as to which to boot to but automatically boot to Win 7 if I don't press anything?

Thanks

Borden · 24 Jun 2009 at 19:27

What you need to do is add a boot option for XP in the Windows 7 boot loader. To do this you can use EasyBCD which should work on Windows 7 just as it does on Vista.

Once installed, you need to go to the Add/Remove entries tab, select the option for XP from the drop down box and then point it to the drive/partition where XP is installed. Add that in and then you can modify other settings like the boot menu timeout, default OS etc.

HTH!

frying_pan_cat · 25 Jun 2009 at 09:19

I have installed Easy BCD and gone to Add/Remove Entries. Under Add an Entry I selected Type:Windows NT/2k/XP/2k3 and named it Windows XP but it won't let me choose the drive where it's installed. It just says Drive: C:\ which is greyed out so I cannot change it and when I click add entry it says EasyBCD could not locate a copy of NTLDR on you hard drive

Borden · 25 Jun 2009 at 10:34

I just had a look on mine and it seems to do the same thing. I don't have XP installed but i think it might be something to do with EasyBCD not being able to locate the boot.ini file which points to the partition for XP.

I don't really know where to go from there, but you could try asking on the EasyBCD forums (here). There's already a thread on there about booting XP and Win 7, so you might want to check that out (here). You might also want to have a read of the EasyBCD documentation to see if that has anything useful.

Hope you get it sorted!

frying_pan_cat · 25 Jun 2009 at 11:11

Thanks. I'll have a look there and see if I can get is sorted

frying_pan_cat · 28 Jun 2009 at 13:43

Just to update I managed to get it working.

I d/l EasyBCD 2.0 beta and also had to d/l the NTLDR and NTDETECT.COM from their website and put them in the hidden boot partition, then let EasyBCD rebuild the boot.ini.
The drive letter for XP was apparently greyed out as it needs to be on C:\ to make it work

Thanks for pointing me towards EasyBCD

robinbredin · 28 Jun 2009 at 15:22

Hi, There is an journal HERE that will also help you. I used method 2 when I setup my duel boot.