Dual Boot Problem with Vista ultimate 64 and XP

[DK10]

Last night I decided to repartition my main 80 gig drive in half that has XP on it and try out the ultimate oem dell vista. partitioning and formating of new space went fine and i installed vista to the new partition which i called O:\ in XP.

this is where it gets strange, when I restart i get no dual boot menu, it just goes straight to XP. so i edited the boot.ini file looking at guides online to add the second partition. gave me a boot menu but when i select vista it would say error and something about ntoskrnl.exe only the XP boot option worked.

BUT when the vista DVD is in the drive the pc boots straight to vista. so i look around and find something called pcbootloader.exe or something specifically for vista and this issua and yes that gives me a boot menu. except anytime i select XP the computer reboots instantly and ALSO to get the vista style boot menu i have to have the DVD in, if i do not have it in i get the xp style boot select menu.

some notes:
both oses are on 2 different partitions on a 80 gig sata drive
in xp xp is drive c and vista is o
in vista vista is c and xp is f (it did this automatically)
the xp partition comes first before the vista one in the disk manager in windows.


my xp boot ini file that i manually edited to add vista

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows Vista Ultimate" /fastdetect
/NoExecute=OptIn



anyone have any ideas about how to get a working boot menu, either the xp or vista style that works without the vista dvd and succesfully boots both OSes.

oh ps. i just reformated the vista partition and reinstalled and still the same problem.

thanks a lot guys

 

[Ataraxia]

Vista doesn't use Boot.ini , it uses a new Bootloader.

Download EasyBCD and run it within Vista, and change the Boot config.

Alternatively, format your HD, install XP first onto one partition, then Vista onto another. The problem is you installed Vista first.

 

[DK10]

no, thats the thing. i've had xp for over a year. i just added vista yestarday

 

[DK10]

so basically, i need something to put in my boot.ini file, since that is what is used when the vista dvd is not in the drive, that will make vista boot instead of giving me a ntoskrnl.exe not found error.

 

[Ataraxia]

That is odd...

Anyway, Vista does NOT read Boot.ini. You need to use Vista's bootloader to dual boot XP + Vista, you can't use Boot.ini.

 

[DK10]

so how do i get my pc to default to the vista loader and then the actual xp to boot from the dual boot loader

 

[DK10]

anyone? please?

 

[MadScientist]

Originally posted by: Ataraxia
That is odd...

Anyway, Vista does NOT read Boot.ini. You need to use Vista's bootloader to dual boot XP + Vista, you can't use Boot.ini.

I agree. You shouldn't have to mess with XP's boot.ini file.
Try using VistaBootPro

 

[DK10]

tried that, and that does give me the vista style bootmenu which means it kinda works, but i can only still get the vista menu when the dvd is in the drive. i don't boot from the dvd or anything it just has to be in there for the style to switch. and of course the vista boot selector still doesn't give me a working xp option, pc just reboots when i select xp

 

[postmortemIA]

you need to install vista boot loader on first partition of first drive. Boot directory of Vista DVD has bootsect.exe that can help you do so.

 

[DK10]

i'll try that later. thanks

 

[DK10]

is the problem possibly that the xp is 32 bit while the vista install is 64 bit?