Hi,
Could be that when you used vista to do the partitioning and formatting XP
didnt like it. There is i believe something different in the structure of
Vista`s partitioning and formating. It may not be backward compatible, at
least with 3rd party partitoning software. Cant rememeber what the
difference is but a search on the web will find it.
I guess you installed XP on an extended partition/logical drive in which
case the mbr would have been overwritten by the o/s and also system files.
This is the way i did it, as it then isolates each o/s from each other.
I have installed XP home and Vista premium on same drive and the way i did
it was to create two Primary partitions and format ntfs using paragon hard
disk manager.
I installed XP on the second primary and Vista on the first.
Just make the partition you want to install O/S on active first.
I also created on the second primary an extended partition and logical drive
and installed XP again for testing software purposes.
So i can boot to Vista / Xp / and Xp test.
You need to use a boot manager like paragon that can select and make active
either partition depending on o/s selection at boot.
Good luck
Graham....
"john p murphy" <jm920@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:t8ip94l7ub6ach921ofse3qcv3rjfnd880@xxxxxx
Quote:
> Ok, so i am bored last weekend, i am presently running Vista Ultimate,
> and figured i would install XP HOme editon, i create a partition using
> vista disk management, format it, put some files on it, partiton was
> just fine, so i put in the xp disk, reboot, does the standard XP thing
> copying windows files, now time to reboot, after reboot, i get this
> message, missing operating system, well i tried to reinstall again and
> again, so i put in the vista dvd, boot, go to repair, repair fails
> miserably, so i just figure, new vista install, so i do, get to the
> part to partiton, etc, what i notice is now i have 3 partitions, C,D,
> and an unallocated space, small, so i remove all the partitions, and
> just install vista, no problems, running fine now, what i am curious
> about is what the hell just went on,????? years ago, i never had
> problems doing dual boots, xp and 98 , its killing me not knowing what
> the hell was going on and what happened?? thanks for any help with
> this, i am losing sleep on this one LOL