bmoag

I have installed XP on many systems in multiboot configuration because some
piece of hardware or software required a prior version of Windows.
In this case I installed Vista (RC1 32 bit) to a separate SATA hard drive
from the drive XP is installed on. In this scenario XP has always installed
and dual booted as expected. Even XP64 installed (long ago totally deleted,
drives reformatted) on this particular machine in this configuration. As
Vista will not be universally supported by peripheral and software makers
this is the scenario many upgraders will face, and this is indeed Microsoft's
problem and not that of the user. Vista users should not have to reflag
drives as bootable, rewrite boot configuration files manually or resort to
third party multi-boot programs. This will make the Mactel look even more
attractive. I do not have exotic hardware on this machine: Nvidia chipset
supporting an AMD 64 dual core and SATA/EIDE hard drives. Is there a
solution?


"John Barnes" wrote:

> If you have your first drive as first in boot priority, then when you
> installed xp on the second drive the boot files were on the first drive. If
> you then formatted the first drive when installing Vista, the XP boot files
> would be gone. This would be the case if there were 1 partition per drive.
> As the others have said, provide specific information. Which drive is first
> in boot priority, what system you want to install on it. How many
> partitions and which is active. Same for the second drive. How are you or
> have you done any installations to date.
>
> "bmoag" <bmoag@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
> news:0F0F14ED-78BF-4E9D-B5FB-215325F3897D@microsoft.com...
> > Microsoft is heading for a well-earned disaster with this OS if they do
> > not
> > fix the dual boot installation problem. What's the chance of this before
> > the
> > January release date? Win XP has no problem installing on a second hard
> > drive
> > and getting all the information and location of the boot loader correct
> > but
> > Vista is a hit or miss fiasco-works for some but not for everybody. I get
> > this error and can find no solution that works. I have installed under
> > WinXP,
> > installed from the DVD, changed the BIOS settings. I examine the Vista
> > Boot
> > loader in VistaBoot Pro and it seems to point to the correct drive. I run
> > the
> > repair function from the Vista DVD, it identifies the problem, says it
> > fixed
> > it but of course it did not. Does anyone no of any clear troubleshooting
> > for
> > this or is Vista just more Microsoft crippleware?
>
>