Vista trying to boot into old XP install

Hey Guys,
First of all i just want to say great site, so much info!
Now the issue that i have is that i was running XP pro and i wanted to upgrade to Vista ultimate 64 edition, now i tried to do this by launching the install from with windows but since it was a 64bit program this wouldnt work so i had to boot from the DVD and do a custom install.
Now i did not want to reformat my HDD simply because i had no where to put my data, i tried to extend the partition of my 250gig hdd (both installations are on this one physical drive.) I am unsure if this is where my issues began or not. Anyways the install eventually completed, although i had to force the pc to boot from the DVD three times in a row to complete the installation. The install did complete successfully and i had full access/use to the vista 64bit OS.
I then rebooted my machine and it gives an error that a file (its something like ntlok.exe i am at work atm) is missing and it cannot continue with out it, After he OS selection menu tries to boot into XP there is no mention of vista in the OS list.
My questions are,
Does vista use the boot.ini file?
If so how can i identify which partition number (not letter) vista is installed on so i can configure the boot.ini file to boot to vista?
I have no use for XP at all and really just wanted to backup or move my documents and settings folder.
Could someone provide an example of their boot.ini file?

baldychoko said:

My questions are,
Does vista use the boot.ini file?
If so how can i identify which partition number (not letter) vista is installed on so i can configure the boot.ini file to boot to vista?
I have no use for XP at all and really just wanted to backup or move my documents and settings folder.
Could someone provide an example of their boot.ini file?

Click to expand...

No, Vista doesn't use boot.ini, it uses a new kind of bootloader called BCD which uses the file c:\bootmgr (no .extension) and the c:\boot folder.

If you are dual booting XP and Vista and pick XP from Vista's boot menu, it then passes to XP's boot loader which does use boot.ini.

If you have no use for XP, you can exclude it from Vista's boot menu, in which case boot.ini becomes irrelevant, it will never be read.

I can't describe an exact step-by-step method to clean up the current mess because I don't get a clear picture from your message about how your partitions are arranged.
Anyway, I gather this is a new install of Vista which you haven't invested much time in customising, so you'd better start again instead of trying to fix it. It seems the only problem is how to keep your docs from the old OS while being able to do a fresh install of Windows, which should include a format of the new system partition for a clean install.

One problem is that if you install Vista to partition1 while XP is still on partition2, it will see the XP OS and will make a Vista boot menu offering both of them. No worries, you can then edit Vista's boot menu so it only contains one item, for Vista. When there's only one item listed, it just boots straight into Vista without bothering to show a boot menu. An easy way to do that is to run EasyBCD in Vista.
Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies

Then in Vista you can just use Explorer to retrieve your data files from the old XP partition, and you can delete XP's Windows folder, etc.

Another problem is that if the partition with XP on it is set as the Active partition at the time you run the Vista installer, it will write Vista's boot files on that partition. That means you will never be able to format the old XP partition without losing Vista's ability to boot.

If that matters to you, you can fix it by changing which partition is set active, before you start the Vista install. You can do that with any partition manager.
If you do that it will write Vista's boot files on Vista's partition, so you can reformat the old XP partition any time you want.

Thanks for the reply mate, the only issue is that i cant boot into Vista by choice. I believe the only reason it booted into vista was because it was finishing the install.
I deleted or renamed the boot.ini file from the c:\ dir would this force the pc to boot through to vista?
Alternatively can i boot into easyBCD?
At the moment the only utility or access that i have to an OS is the repair option that you get when you install from the vista DVD

baldychoko said:

Thanks for the reply mate, the only issue is that i cant boot into Vista by choice. I believe the only reason it booted into vista was because it was finishing the install.
I deleted or renamed the boot.ini file from the c:\ dir would this force the pc to boot through to vista?

Click to expand...

No that won't work. If it's trying to boot into XP and you remove boot.ini, it will still try booting XP and will fail with an error message "Missing boot.ini"

baldychoko said:

Alternatively can i boot into easyBCD?

Click to expand...

EasyBCD only runs in Windows (either XP or Vista). If a dual boot setup breaks and is only booting into XP, you can run EasyBCD in XP to enable booting into both of them.

I think the simplest way now is to make a completely fresh start - delete all partitions on the hard disk. Then boot the Vista DVD. It will offer to male a new partition, format it as NTFS and then install Windows there. You can choose for the Vista installer to make one partition covering the whole disk, or a smaller partition for Vista and your installed programs, maybe 50gb, leaving room for a second partition for your data files (which is my personal preference).

You will want to retrieve your data files (documents etc) onto another hard disk or DVDs first. You can do that by attaching this hard disk to another PC running Windows (either internally or via a USB adapter) then use Explorer to copy your files from it.

After copying your files from it, while it's still attached to the other PC, go into disk management and delete the partitions on the problem HD. Then connect it to its own PC and install Vista.

It might be possible to rescue it in some way but the fresh start described above will probably be easiest and is more certain to give you a good new system.

in the end the clean install option was taken
format :c
then a fresh install of vista working fine now......
Thanks mate