Dual boot system xp and vista question

[CarlitoB]

Hi to everyone reading this. I got a problem. I have a dual boot system with xp and vista. They are on separate partitions xp on c: and vista on d: . I got to reformat the c drive and reinstall xp but I do not want to lose vista. The vista boot loader is on drive c: and will get erased probably. Is there a way to get around this or to reinstall the boot loader for vista? One other question is there a way to set up the boot loader that xp gets loaded first? I hate it when i power up and forget to move the curser up to earlier windows version and the system boots vista. Thanks in advance for any tips or solutions.

 

[Dream Operator]

Shouldn't be a problem.

I'm going to assume you know where the boot.ini is. If not, search for it.

Copy that file, or the info in that file and save to a jump drive or something that will get saved (you could even email it to yourself). After you install XP again, it will boot into XP. Replace the boot.ini or the info inside it and you should be good to go!

Change the order of the info in the boot .ini to change which OS is listed first.

 

[CarlitoB]

Dream operator you're the man:thumbsup: Thanks alot!! Worked like a charm!

 

[pallejr]

That worked? It shouldn't have, not if the partition has been formatted. ntldr and boot.ini doesn't boot Vista, bootmgr does. Vista stores its info in the boot folder in the active partition. So if this partition is formatted using XP, the boot folder and Vista's boot record needs to be restored afterwards

 

[Dream Operator]

Originally posted by: pallejr
That worked? It shouldn't have, not if the partition has been formatted. ntldr and boot.ini doesn't boot Vista, bootmgr does. Vista stores its info in the boot folder in the active partition. So if this partition is formatted using XP, the boot folder and Vista's boot record needs to be restored afterwards

LOL!! I came back to this forum yesterday to post that I was wrong. I then found that he thought it worked. I felt quit puzzled. I don't think I actually know how to resolve this issue specifically, but I think I know a tool that can help. EasyBCD is a boot config program for Vista that looks pretty easy and powerful. Try that if you are still having issues.

 

[Woofmeister]

Easy BCD is your friend.

If you get into trouble booting Vista after you've reformatted, you can always boot from the Vista disk and then run the repair module.