Dual booting winpro 64bit and pro 32bit problem

[Joerg]

Ok so far ive really liked pro 64bit but HP sucks and hasnt released drivers for my printer, and tommorow i have a report due for my expos class so i have to print some stuff. So i decided to put on my old copy of xp pro 32bit onto my E partition. 64bit is on the C: partition.

After installing pro i went to boot back into 64bit and it came up immediately after selecting the os saying ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt. So i went back into 32bit windows and found the file on the 64bit windows cd and replaced the one on the harddrive. Rebooted and i still get the error. So now i am lost.

Im wondering if i missed a step for installing dual boot. Its been awhile sense i last did it and i suppose there could be something i forgot.

Could it be my boot.ini file being messed up? Like maybe when it says it is missing that file it just says it is checking windows root instead of the c drive.

Here is my boot.ini file if that helps.
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

 

[Joerg]

Ok sorry to post again but i really would like to get this working. I went ahead and tried a repair through the windows cd but it always just stops at 34 mins left. This is with the windows xp 64bit version. Is there a way i can manually repair windows? Or what if i installed it on a different partition then copied all the system files to the C drive? Is there a way i can keep the registry and driver installs?

 

[thegorx]

I'm not sure what's going on but it sounds like you're leaving something out
the reason I say that is this line

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(2)partition(1)\WINDOWS

which suggest not just three partitions but three drives

Have you switched or added drives to the computer ?

by refering to your drives as C drive and E drive you can get yourself in trouble
since the order might be different if you added a drive after the install of one OS but before the install of the next OS.

you should talk about drives on how and where they're connected
drive 0 drive 1 etc

but anyway it sounds like a boot.ini problem most likely because of a hard drive change

 

[Joerg]

Ok there are 3 drives on the system. All of them were installed prior to the addition of both operating systems. The first drive is 2 partitions C: and G: This is drive 0. Partition C: has XP 64bit installed on it. The second drive is drive D: an 80gig drive with one partition. That drive or drive 1 has no Os installed on it. Drive 2 is a 160gig Sata with 2 paritions E: and H:. E: has XP 32bit running on it.

The original problem was that i reformatted the system and installed pro 64bit as the only OS. Then i found that i couldnt get printer drivers for the 64bit version. I decided then to go dual boot and install XP pro 32bit. I installed 32bit on partition E: drive 2. After installing it i tried to boot to 64bit but i got the error that ntokernl.exe was missing or corrupt. I tried to replace the file but i was unable to. At that point i decided to do a repair of windows. The repair copies the files and starts installation but at 34 mins left it always freezes up. The text on screen changes but it never goes past 34 mins. So i am not sure where to go from here.

I just went through reinstalling xp64bit not but a week ago and it took me this whole week to get it just how i wanted it and now it isnt working again. So i would like very much to fix it without having to reinstall everything. So my question is this.

How can i reinstall windows over the old copy and not loose all of my settings and not have to reinstall everything. Like how could i copy the registry and other files like that? Keep in mind right now i am logged into the 32bit copy and i have access to all the windows files on the C: drive. I just cant boot to that copy of windows.

 

[thegorx]

yeah, I did a quick google and it seems people run into this

I don't know what is the hang up is and why it won't let you reinstall over the top to fix your XP 64 boot, hopefully someones been though this and can help

I might if I was in that situation try, ghost image the partition to save your XP 64 install
then try different ways a reinstalling the XP 64 on the first drive again

 

[thegorx]

try searching google groups

http://groups.google.com

xp 64 bit dual boot ntoskrnl.exe

 

[Joerg]

Thanks so much for all the help. I did a search on google groups and it appear i am definately not alone. Looks like you cant install xp pro 64 first when doing dual boot. So i guess im just going to have to reformat everything.

The funny thing though is that now my usb ports completely dont work so i still cant print even from xp pro 32 bit. I am assuming i need to update windows. But windows will not validate correctly. So i cant get sp2 on pro right now. So i am going to try and download the network slipstream pack from ms and then either use it to update windows or go the long route and slipstream the disk and reinstall again. I have to print stuff by 9 AM tommorow so wish me luck guys.

Man how much i wish i had an old parrallel port printer right now.

 

[montag451]

I think you can still get the usb to parallel converters

 

[thegorx]

I would think that windows 32 bit would have no problem loading USB drivers for that system athough I can't say for sure
you might have a problem with the mainboard, it might need to be reset or something if you can't get the usb to work.

 

[VirtualLarry]

Originally posted by: Joerg
After installing pro i went to boot back into 64bit and it came up immediately after selecting the os saying ntoskrnl.exe is missing or corrupt.

The exact same thing happened to me. This was after installing XP SP2, and then W2K SP4, into testing partitions, on a drive that already contained XP SP1 and W2K SP2. The error message showed up when attempting to boot my XP SP1 partition. The bootloader files in C:\ got overwritten with the W2K SP4 versions, which don't work for XP SP1. Thankfully, I had copies of those files elsewhere, and just copied them back over. NTDETECT, NTLDR, etc. (W2K also installs ARCLDR, but I don't think that those are even used on x86. I think you can rename/delete them without issue.)

 

[Doh!]

When installing dual boot for Windows, always install the older version first. 32-bit then 64-bit. Then, you'll be ok. For a quick(?) fix, just reinstall the 32-bit over the existing windows (without formating) then reinstall the 64-bit (without formating) and you should have a working dual boot setup. Reinstalling won't mess with your files or programs already installed.