I went through hell the last two months trying to get my Vista and XP separate drives to work with each other. I got some misguided advice along the way which didn't help, along with lots of helpful but incomplete suggestions too.
Microsoft of course was a huge waste of time, they don't seem to know anything there.
I installed and reinstalled XP and Vista an aggregate of 11 times...way beyond the patience of a Mother Theresa.
Then I stumbled upon VistaBootPro. It, like EasyBCD and BootIT, apparently, take the mystery out of the dual boot situation and I'm happy, happy, oh so happy to say I can now boot with ease into either OS without any hassles at all.
The website with lots of support and helpful forums and guides on how to troubleshoot your own rig is
here:
I'm also copying below the actual guide that cleared up the confusion for me and led me to finally understanding enough of what I was doing. It has you set up your dual boot from within XP, which is less trouble prone.
One big problem I had was I could not find boot.ini on my XP drive from within Vista. No matter how many folder view options I unchecked, such as hide files and show system files, Vista would not reveal boot.ini.
When I booted into XP, it was right there...just another reason to set up from XP if possible.
Here's the guide. I added a couple comments for clarity. The website linked above has the guide with screenshots but I couldn't rediscover it...there's a lot of categories there...but this will give you all the info you need if you know your system at all.
Good luck! Dual booting is indeed no sweat...once you do the exact right steps.
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Unplugged XP Drive for Vista Setup: Can't Dual Boot to XP
(This intro may or not relate to you...don't sweat it, if you have multiple OS's installed, it should work. I had as of this morning once again lost my bootmgr on Vista, for no reason at all. I just did the steps below and it all worked out fine...at last.)
So?you unplugged your Windows XP hard drive before Windows Vista setup, so that you didn?t fubar your XP installation. Both XP and Vista boot fine when you change the boot drive order in the BIOS, effectively changing the Windows system drive each time, but that gets a bit tiresome.
Windows XP needs the following files to be on the system drive (for example, C)for it to be able to boot;
boot.ini
NTDETECT.COM
ntldr
and Windows Vista needs these files to be on the exact same system drive, for example C for it to be able to boot;
Boot (folder and contents, most importantly the BCD store)
bootmgr
To sort this out, follow the steps below:
1. Plug both drives in and set the Windows XP drive to be the boot drive in the BIOS. This will make it the system drive and although it doesn?t really matter whether the XP or Vista drive is the system drive, it tends to be easier to manage and control booting from within Windows XP.
2. Open Disk Management (right click My Computer>Manage) and go to Disk Management to check that your XP drive is your system drive, although the fact that you were able to boot to XP should already confirm that.
(for instance, on my system, Disk Management showed the second partition (not the root partition that holds my XP system files) to be the system partition. I worried about this but it didn't matter. They were on the same drive and apparently that's all that was required.)
3. Open Windows Explorer and make sure you set Folder Options in Control Panel to be able to see hidden files and files and unhide protected operating system files. You?ll find folder options in the same place in Vista if you select Classic View for Control Panel.
Once you've enabled the ability to see all folders, you should verify that the following three folders are indeed in your C: root drive when booted to XP: ntdlr, netdetect, and boot.ini. If not, search on the site linked above for how to find those and create your own boot.ini - don't worry, it's easy.
4. Copy the folder Boot and the file bootmgr from your Vista installation drive (it will have a different drive letter, for example F)and paste it into your XP installation drive (into the root C: drive in other words, no matter which partition is labeled System by Disk Management. Do not put those files in any folders - not into System or any other folder - just copy and paste them into C: itself, where the three XP boot files already are [ntdlr, netdetect and boot.ini, remember?].
5. Download and install VistaBootPRO. Open it and click on the System Bootloader tab. Select ?Uninstall Vista bootloader? and press Apply. (It may also simply say Install Vista Bootloader. Either way select that.)
Click on the Install Boatloader button at bottom right
6. Next go to the Manage OS Entries tab and check the ?Add new OS" box. Three choices will drop down: OS Name [pick your own, such as XP drive], OS Type [make sure you select ?Windows Legacy?, NOT "Windows Vista", then select the drive letter (since you're in XP, it should be drive C:] In any case, it's the drive you have ntldr on.
(This drive letter must also be your system drive which is set to boot in the BIOS).
You can now choose which OS you wish to be the default to which the system will boot by default. I picked XP because I'd had so much trouble with Vista.
Now press Apply Updates
Reboot. After the post screen, you'll get a screen, probably black, with the choice of which Operating System you wish to boot to, such as:
Windows Vista 64
Older Windows OS (which is XP in my case) Choose the you want to boot to and you're set. QED
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