Just installed Vista, now XP won't work - Help!

mishima · 2 Feb 2009 at 10:21

Hi there,

I've had XP installed for over 2 months now, and I've installed Vista on a seperate HDD to XP. Since installing Vista, I've not had any option to boot into XP. It just boots straight to Vista.

So Last night I installed a boot manager (EasyBCD - http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1). This alllowed me to edit the boot manager, so I added XP and pointed it to the other HDD with XP on it.

When I boot up, the manager now displays XP and Vista, but when selecting XP - It will not boot up saying something has corrupted. Any ideas what to do?

Thanks, any help is much appreciated.

CK61938 · 2 Feb 2009 at 10:28

Have you checked to make sure that the other HDD is present in Vista? Can you still see the files and folders within Vista?

When you first installed Vista, you did choose the Custom install and not the upgrade option?

I know when I had XP and installed Vista on a seperate partition, it worked totally fine. Check to make sure that the HDD still has all the files and folders first.

Another thing I would also try is msconfig in Vista (the usual Run command using Windows button + R). You want to check the Boot section and see if XP is in the list of boot options.

If all that is fine and you're still having corruption issues, try booting into safe mode and see if that works. If it boots into Safe Mode, then there shouldnt be a problem. If still a problem after that, providing you havent put any software on, remove Vista and see if you can boot into XP as normal.

mishima · 2 Feb 2009 at 10:50

I can see the drive in Vista, no problems.

I'm not sure what I selected last night so I can't answer the custom/upgrade install.

I'll give that a go when I get in later and see how it goes. Thanks for your suggestions!

linktoinsanity · 2 Feb 2009 at 12:20

Try copying the xp boot files over from your vista partition to the xp partition. I would name them but at this time I can't remember what they are called...

EDIT: Found them. They are NTLDR, ntdetect.com and boot.ini.

mishima · 2 Feb 2009 at 13:24

Where abouts will I find these? you have to explain in very simple terms, I'm a newbie!

linktoinsanity · 2 Feb 2009 at 13:35

mishima said:
Where abouts will I find these? you have to explain in very simple terms, I'm a newbie!

If you unhide all hidden files and folders (show system files as well) you should find all three at the root of the drive that originally booted Windows XP. Copy them to the root of the other drive an all should be well. If you can't find them, try googling them and downloading them that way...

You've been here longer than me, how are you a newbie?

mishima · 2 Feb 2009 at 13:38

Thanks mate, well I'm a newbie in this situation

Usually if you get someone to explain as simple as possible you rule out having to ask so many questions hehe.

pastymuncher · 2 Feb 2009 at 14:10

I have a similar situation but just hit F8 on startup to select the hdd i want to boot from. XP on one, Vista 64bit on the other. Otherwise it always boots from Vista.