Windows 7/XP dual boot, no boot menu

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PurdueRy

Lifer
Nov 12, 2004
13,837
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I convinced my brother to give Windows 7 a try and was helping him install it remotely(over IM). He did fine and booted into windows 7 and was enjoying it. He decided he wanted to go back and boot into XP but surprisingly he says there is no option to boot to Windows 7 anymore. It simply goes straight to Windows XP now.

From reading on the 'net it seems like the more common problem is the other way around. I understand that the two OSs have different boot loaders and there could be some issue with that but I'm not exactly sure how to go about fixing this. I suggested he boot off the windows 7 disc again and do a repair install.

The one thing that makes me wary is that he has a tendency to get flustered quickly if something goes wrong. So I'd like to find a more definite solution before telling him what to do.

He installed windows 7 on a second partition of his boot drive. windows XP is on c: windows 7 is on d:.

Anyone here with more knowledge of how the boot loaders work could lend a hand?
 
Scotteq

Scotteq

Diamond Member
Apr 10, 2008
5,276
5
0
Boot to the Win 7 install DVD, and let it do it's thing.

When it's ready, select 'Install'

On the second screen, in the lower left - Select "Repair", and affirm your selection

When it comes back saying it found an error, accept it's offer to repair it.


From there, it'll restart, and you should have your Dual Boot.
 
P

PurdueRy

Lifer
Nov 12, 2004
13,837
4
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Originally posted by: Scotteq
Boot to the Win 7 install DVD, and let it do it's thing.

When it's ready, select 'Install'

On the second screen, in the lower left - Select "Repair", and affirm your selection

When it comes back saying it found an error, accept it's offer to repair it.


From there, it'll restart, and you should have your Dual Boot.
Click to expand...

That's what I was going to try but good to hear someone affirm it. I'll let you know how that goes.
 
P

PurdueRy

Lifer
Nov 12, 2004
13,837
4
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Apparently if he boots from the 7 DVD and repairs the install he now has the dual boot menu...but it goes away after that. Any ideas?
 
S

SickBeast

Lifer
Jul 21, 2000
14,377
19
81
It sounds like the boot order of his hard drives is messed up. He needs to fix it in his BIOS.
 
P

PurdueRy

Lifer
Nov 12, 2004
13,837
4
0
Can't be boot order, it's all on one drive...two partitions

Tried repairing Windows 7. Still only boots into XP unless DVD for win 7 is in drive. I also tried messing with easyBCD however no settings seem to indicate that it should try to boot to XP first.
 
B

Bozo Galora

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 1999
7,271
0
0
it'll never say XP
you have to add "Earlier Version of Windows"

have to use custom fresh install on dual boot, not upgrade
use gparted to format partition so you dont get 100MB system partition when win 7 partitions

You also totally disregarded my mention of O/S partitions naming and status
there is a drive letter change if you load 7 from booted DVD, not from xp

what happens is win 7 makes C the default boot drive whether in XP or Win 7
http://www.kombitz.com/2009/03...-xp-dual-boot-problem/
http://www.sevenforums.com/tut...on-windows-7-xp-2.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tut...tion-windows-7-xp.html

Edit:
Just for my own curiosity - could you post a screenshot of the drives partitions in Win 7 disk manager?

Edit 2:
Did a little research and easybcd 2.0 beta 63 seems to work like a champ with new RC when 1.7.2 doesnt. automated transfer of ntdetect and ntldr and boot.ini
Quote:
Build 63 uploaded. Automates copying of NTLDR and NTDETECT to boot partitions. Tested against the hidden boot partition in Windows 7, works great.
EasyBCD 2.0 does not copy over the files, if that's what you're thinking. It creates them. Did you use the latest beta build (63)? That is the only build as of yet that can create those files, and place them in the correct place (it can also cope with the hidden "system" partition that Win 7 creates when you tell the installer to install to free space). Just look in your Disk Management, and find the partition marked as both 'system' and 'active' (whichever partition that is). That is where NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM, and BOOT.INI need to be in order to boot XP from the Win 7 bootloader.
(unquote)

Need to register to downld beta
http://neosmart.net/forums/showthread.php?t=642

Edit:
FWIW I always used vistabootpro in the past when I could still download for free
 
P

PurdueRy

Lifer
Nov 12, 2004
13,837
4
0
Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
it'll never say XP
you have to add "Earlier Version of Windows"

have to use custom fresh install on dual boot, not upgrade

you also totally disregarded my mention of O/S partitions naming and status
there is a drive letter change if you load 7 from booted DVD, not from xp

what happens is win 7 makes C the default boot drive whether in XP or Win 7
http://www.kombitz.com/2009/03...-xp-dual-boot-problem/
http://www.sevenforums.com/tut...on-windows-7-xp-2.html
http://www.sevenforums.com/tut...tion-windows-7-xp.html

Edit:
just for my own curiosity - could you post a screenshot of the drives partitions in Win 7 disk manager?
Click to expand...

I'm not disregarding anything I promise. Keep in mind I am helping him remotely so I am trying your suggestions but I may have forgotten to follow up with you guys on their results.

Best I can tell you from what I found out last night is that windows XP sees itself installed on C and 7 installed on D:. Windows 7 sees exactly the opposite. I did not see whether the XP partition has a name but I would be very surprised if it didn't. I'll check on it though. Surprisingly enough I found out that c:, d:, e: and j: are active in disk mgmt. When I looked into this it appears that he has a boot.ini file on his winXP drive and his j: drive. Per what I've read its possible for the boot information to be on a different drive actually. I tried to figure out which was the correct boot information but they had both been modified by easyBCD and had today's date on them. Easy BCD picked j: as its boot drive for XP.

You are correct, it does say "earlier version of windows" when he boots off the win 7 DVD. I was just simplifying the language.
 
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Bozo Galora

Diamond Member
Oct 28, 1999
7,271
0
0
Re read my post above - I edited it

And yes, both O/S are using C to boot, but boot stuff from XP no longer accessible from C
BCD didnt pick J - you allowed it
J is prob one letter past what you have allocated
Cant do anything else here without screenie from disk manager

Note: EasyBCD 2.0beta - BUILD 63 is the only vers that can auto transfer XP booting files to C
 
P

PurdueRy

Lifer
Nov 12, 2004
13,837
4
0
Originally posted by: Bozo Galora
Re read my post above - I edited it

And yes, both O/S are using C to boot, but boot stuff from XP no longer accessible from C
BCD didnt pick J - you allowed it
J is prob one letter past what you have allocated
Cant do anything else here without screenie from disk manager
Click to expand...

BCD did pick J. When you make an entry it has "autodetect" and the box to pick it is greyed out. I can change the target in the setting tab on another page. But it does autodetect it.

I'll try to get you a screen capture whenever he is around again. But I did tell him to use easyBCD 2.0 as I read the same thing you posted in your last post when researching. So that's not the issue there at least.
 
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