Vista XP dual boot not working

[t3h l337 n3wb]

I bought a Compaq laptop on Black Friday at Circuit City ($300), and it came loaded with Vista Home Premium. I worked with it, and the X3100 graphics drivers apparently suck on Vista, causing me to get ~20FPS on fy_iceworld in CSS (pretty sad). So I decided to dual boot Vista and XP, following the tutorial here:

http://apcmag.com/5485/dualbooting_vista_and_xp#corrupt

After XP installed and rebooted to continue the installation from the hard drive, I got a BSOD and couldn't boot into XP. After researching the problem, I thought I had this happen to me (from the above tutorial site):

Fixing the corrupt bootloader

If the Windows XP bootload corrupts during the install, performing a reinstall won?t fix it, nor will going into the XP Recovery Mode and attempting to repair the MBR.

Luckily, the install was up to the stage where all you need to do is be able to boot from the Windows XP partition, and the install will pick up from where it left off.

To achieve this, follow the procedure outlined above to restore the Vista bootloader (under "Restoring Vista and Dualbooting").

This allows the system to boot into Vista, and then you can use EasyBCD to create an XP boot entry and boot into that to continue on with XP's installation. (For details on using EasyBCD, also see the section "Restoring Vista and Dualbooting".)

Okay, well, easy enough. I popped in a Vista Ultimate DVD that I borrowed from a friend (I don't have the Home Premium DVD). I went to "repair installation" to repair the Vista MBR, and it work. I also tried doing it manually in the command prompt. Then, I tried to boot into Vista, but it kept restarting without even displaying the "Windows" screen. Going back into the Vista DVD, I tried the complete "repair installation" on my Vista install, but here's the screenshot of what happens:

http://i5.photobucket.com/albu...l337_n3wb/PIC-0032.jpg

So now I can't boot anything. Is my only option to completely reformat? I don't have a Home Premium DVD, so I'd really rather find some other kind of solution. Thanks.

 

[jonmcc33]

You need to install Windows XP first and then Vista.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

The guide says "Dual booting XP and Vista with Vista installed first", and it has obviously worked for many people, so I don't see why it shouldn't for me.

 

[jonmcc33]

You need to install Windows XP first and then Vista.

 

[Billb2]

You need to install XP first and then Vista.

That being said, again, what you want to do can be done.
It's doesn't work all the time if you're just "cookbookiing" a tutorial/guide though.
"I went to "repair installation" to repair the Vista MBR, and it work. I also tried doing it manually in the command prompt. Then, I tried to boot into Vista, but it kept restarting without even displaying the "Windows" screen." .......see

There are a lot of "it depends" involved. IDE/SATA/partitions/number of disks, and so on.

You don't (usually) have to repair the MBR not the boot sector...but it depends...

All prebuilt laptops cone with a "destructive repair" option that will set everything back to the way it was when it left the factory. It's usually started with some weird key combination at boot up. That will get you back to a functioning Vista.

The best advice is to go to microsofts's website and read about how XP and Vista boot. Then, with that knowledge, you will be able to properly do what you want. Again, it can be done, How? ....it just depends.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Okay, I tried using the "destructive recovery", but my laptop didn't come with any recovery disks. The manual says it doesn't need any and should be able to recover directly from my recovery partition. However, when I hit F11 (the key for recovery) at bootup, nothing happens. The words "System Recovery" appear in the bottom left corner, but it then proceeds to try to boot the installed Vista normally, which results in the BSOD and restart.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Bump?

 

[jonmcc33]

You're spending far too much time on this. Sometimes the easiest solution is right in front of you, as I have suggested multiple times.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

That would be a far too difficult solution because I don't have access to a Vista Home Premium DVD. I did manage to get Vista to load by turning on SATA Native Support in the BIOS, which allowed me to boot Vista and use EasyBCD to add my XP installation, boot it, and set it up. So now I have a functioning Vista and XP dual boot setup. The only problem is that I have to turn SATA Native Support on when I boot Vista and off when I boot XP, or else I get a BSOD.

 

[jonmcc33]

That's crazy. Sorry to hear about all of your problems. The laptop didn't come with any re-installation DVD or anything?

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Yeah, I think I was supposed to make my own. It's okay though, since I got XP and Vista to work. The only problem I have now is with the "SATA Native Support" option, which is more of a tiny annoyance than anything. I think it's probably just a driver issue, so it shouldn't be too hard to fix.

 

[pcslookout]

I had both windows vista 64 bit and windows xp installed but I didn't dual boot. Neither one saw that the other was installed. I had installed windows vista first as well then reimaged windows xp image I had on a 10 gig partition on the same 150 gig raptor hard drive that windows vista was on. Windows vista had 25 GB and windows xp 10 GB. I sense deleted windows xp and stayed with windows vista 64 bit. Mainly was using windows xp to test some differences in game performance.

Whenever I wanted to go windows xp I just set the 10 GB partition active. Whenever I wanted to boot back up to windows vista 64 bit I set the 25 GB partition active. It worked out pretty well and this way I was just able to delete the whole 10 GB windows xp partition once I was done testing my game performance differences. This way it doesn't mess up the boot record or make my windows vista not able to boot up after I get rid of windows xp. I had dual booting mess up my main os way to many times to ever try having a dual boot again. I rather just do it like this because its almost like having two pcs with two different operating systems. I have another pc but it has onboard video and not up to the task for gaming performance tests.

 

[t3h l337 n3wb]

Okay, I finally fixed that SATA issue after looking on a ton of web pages. I found the 82801 HEM/HBM SATA driver (for ICH8 southbridge) and installed it in XP, and it worked like a charm. I now have a fully functional dual boot with no problems

Oh, and I'm getting about twice the FPS in CSS on XP compared to Vista (~30 vs 15).

 

[pcslookout]

Originally posted by: t3h l337 n3wb
Okay, I finally fixed that SATA issue after looking on a ton of web pages. I found the 82801 HEM/HBM SATA driver (for ICH8 southbridge) and installed it in XP, and it worked like a charm. I now have a fully functional dual boot with no problems

Oh, and I'm getting about twice the FPS in CSS on XP compared to Vista (~30 vs 15).

CSS maybe but that wasn't the game I was testing.