Shoutbox

I installed Vista into a laptop that already had XP.
The partitions were like this as far as I remember:

Hidden recovery partition
Primary partition - Partition for Data
Logical partition - Partition for XP

I shrank the data partition by 15GB to install Vista into the new partition (the new partition was created as primary by diskpart).
I installed Vista in the 15GB partition and it's working fine.

However, when I try to boot into XP, it will access the hdd for 1-2secs (probably ntldr) and then show a blinking cursor.

I'm not sure why this is happening

I've already tried editing the BCD to point to other partitions for booting but it doesn't work because ntldr (obviously) doesn't exist on other partitions.
I've also tried editing the partition number in boot.ini (tried partitions 0 to 3) but it didn't work (was getting hal.dll errors; most likely because of invalid partitions)
Btw, the partition that displays the blinking cursor is 3

I haven't tried yet using an XP CD to fixboot and fixmbr because I didn't have one with me (and it will also erase Vista's bootloader).

Could it be because GRUB is loading before Vista's Bootloader?


Any suggestions?


Thanks

XP's bootloader won't load vista, you'll have to find a way to fix vista's bootloader

Can't u use the vista disk to do this, or do it from within vista (if you can access it)

I installed Vista over XP on my old computer and didn't have any problems with it so it should be easy enough to sort out

quote:

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Originally posted by djdannyp
XP's bootloader won't load vista, you'll have to find a way to fix vista's bootloader

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I'm trying to boot XP from Vista's bootloader not Vista from XP's

My problem is that XP won't boot after installing Vista (safe mode also doesn't work).
I did the same thing in VMWare (1 primary, 1 logical, shrank primary and installed vista to the new partition) and XP wouldn't even boot after using fixboot/fixmbr .

I believe it is because XP is on a logical partition...

quote:

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Originally posted by djdannyp
I installed Vista over XP on my old computer and didn't have any problems with it so it should be easy enough to sort out

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Yep. I've also done this quite a few time and I never had a problem (expect this time )

quote:

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Originally posted by Mike

quote:

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Originally posted by djdannyp
XP's bootloader won't load vista, you'll have to find a way to fix vista's bootloader

---

I'm trying to boot XP from Vista's bootloader not Vista from XP's

My problem is that XP won't boot after installing Vista (safe mode also doesn't work).
I did the same thing in VMWare (1 primary, 1 logical, shrank primary and installed vista to the new partition) and XP wouldn't even boot after using fixboot/fixmbr .

I believe it is because XP is on a logical partition...

quote:

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Originally posted by djdannyp
I installed Vista over XP on my old computer and didn't have any problems with it so it should be easy enough to sort out

---

Yep. I've also done this quite a few time and I never had a problem (expect this time )

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Yeah, i mentioned Vista not being able to be loaded from XP's bootloader as I believe that using an XP cd to fixboot or fixmbr will only work for XP's bootloader, not Vista's.....that's what that bit was in reference to.

If you can get into Vista then can't you edit the partition in there to change it to a primary partition or something?

http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

Try using that.

quote:

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Originally posted by ipab
http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

Try using that.

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I've already tried that.


I think I've fixed the problem on VMWare by using bootcfg /rebuild on the recovery console (it increased the partition number by 1. Now that I'm thinking about it, it makes sense).
Now, I have to wait until Monday to try it