John Barnes

Don't stay out of responding. The sources I have read indicate the mbr is
different so I suggested adding that step. Very little information about
the Vista boot process seems to be available still, let alone authoritative.

"Confucious" <Confucious@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:FFE89FDD-FAF7-4A06-A60E-B6FF9463595A@microsoft.com...
>i need to stay out of responding, i thought i understood Windows more than
>i
> do. i will have to find out how Vista rewrites the MBR. dont understand
> why
> it would need to if it is backward compatible. it should be able to keep
> the
> info from the MBR other than the NTLDR since it uses a new boot system.
> unless i misunderstood. the MBR is a record for the OS to know what file
> system is being used and how the drive is broken up (sector size and all).
> which is why i thought just replacing NTLDR would be sufficient.
> i guess i have some reading ahead of me.
>
> thanks.
>
> "John Barnes" wrote:
>
>> He is booting to Vista from the XP drive, that means that the XP mbr has
>> been overwritten to point to the Vista bootloader.
>>
>> "Confucious" <Confucious@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
>> news:B4AB41DA-A9E6-4E23-8896-B36F5D6E01A7@microsoft.com...
>> >
>> >
>> > "John Barnes" wrote:
>> >
>> >> Set up your Vista drive as the first in boot priority (so it is the
>> >> System
>> >> drive) Run your vista install DVD and do a repair start (startup -
>> >> don't
>> >> remember exact wording). Reboot and check out booting to Vista.
>> >> Should
>> >> now
>> >> work fine. Then reset the XP drive as the system drive and either
>> >> download
>> >> VistaBootPro and reset to XP mbr, or using the XP install CD, as
>> >> Confucious
>> >> above instructions indicate, except run fixmbr Reboot and you
>> >> should
>> >> now
>> >> boot xp from this setup and Vista when it is reset to be the System
>> >> drive.
>> >>
>> >>
>> > hey john (not arguing!) why would you need to run "fixmbr" if XP was
>> > installed first. the MBR should still be healthy is just the NTLDR that
>> > was
>> > oberwritten by Vista, so doing a "fixboot" would just replace the NTLDR
>> > and
>> > then make the drive bootable again with just a single entry in boot.ini
>> > for
>> > XP ofcourse.
>> > im not terribly familiar with Windows stuff so im just looking for
>> > info.
>>
>>
>>