Trying to Dualboot XP Pro and XP Pro 64

[Dream Operator]

I WILL BE REFERRING TO XP PRO AS "32" AND XP PRO 64BIT AS "64" FOR SIMPLICITY.


I have 32 installed on my SATA drive. I just installed 64 on my PATA drive. First I did a secure erase with Partition Magic on the PATA. I then set up a partition, at the beginning of the drive. It is less than 8gigs.

All went well, but the only way I can get into 64 is to leave the bios set to boot from cd. I just wait for it to go past the "Press any key to boot from CD" prompt. Then it goes to 64.

I have tried going into the RC and adding an OS via bootcfg. I also tried rebuilding the bootcfg. I have tried this in both OS's (64 shows up as c:\ and 32 as d:\).

When I added an OS via bootcfg, I named it at the "identifier" prompt. However, I don't know what enter for the "options" prompt.

Any insight here?

 

[daveshel]

Seems like your BIOS sees SATA and PATA as different boot device options and during the installs is writing to boot files to different locations. Are both drives hooked up during both installs?

 

[Dream Operator]

The PATA was not present when I built my system.

The SATA was present while installing 64 on the PATA.

 

[Dream Operator]

Anybody?😕

 

[ViRGE]

I wish I could help, DO. My best guess is that device enumeration is different depending on the boot device, so the mappings are wrong when you boot from the wrong HD. What's the second device on your list, past the CD drive? Set that as the primary boot, and see what you get from that.

 

[toant103]

try playing around with your bios in the boot order. boot sequence on some board. i think there's an option so it will search for other booting devices, something like that. Good luck.

 

[WPFossil]

You might want to post your boot.ini file - someone might be able to help if they see it. I'm also wondering what happens when the drive with 64 is the first option in your boot order.

If you do a reinstall, it mgiht go better if you put 64 on the same physical drive as 32 - you said you had Partition Magic, you should be able to move things around to make it possible.

Good luck with it.

 

[corkyg]

I personally don't like dual boot schemes. They can cause problems.

Since HDDs are pretty cheap - I would just get another HDD and put both drives in mobile racks and totally switch between the two. Each is seen as a sole master by BIOS and you will never have a conflict or mixup.

 

[WPFossil]

Grab a pair of SATAs and get some of these

🙂

(or use 'em in a RAID array, but we're talking dual booting)

 

[Dream Operator]

Originally posted by: WPFossil
You might want to post your boot.ini file - someone might be able to help if they see it. I'm also wondering what happens when the drive with 64 is the first option in your boot order.

If you do a reinstall, it mgiht go better if you put 64 on the same physical drive as 32 - you said you had Partition Magic, you should be able to move things around to make it possible.

Good luck with it.

Here is my current boot.ini setting. I have tried many things and currently I have the exact same info in both 32 and 64 boot.ini's

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="XP Pro 32"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Remember, I can get into 64 by leaving it to boot to cd, going past the cd, and then I get the correct boot options. Strangely, I get the default boot screen for 32 when booting this way.

Without the cd etc, it gets to the boot selection, but fails if I select 64. If I select 32 I get my modified boot screen.

Maybe I screwed some things up by using the bootcfg in the recovery console.

I do not see how to set ethier hard drive as the first. In the boot device priority, I only see "Hard drive." Could someone enlighten me here?

Thanks all for your replies!

 

[WPFossil]

Add the switch /bootlog to the 64-bit selection line in boot.ini (use notepad). The file ntbtlog.txt (found in the root directory) will give you details about the boot and possibly a clue to why it's failing. You might want to compare the file with both a successful and a failed boot.

 

[Odeboo]