Vista - Dual Boot Re-visited

I am having trouble creating a dual boot with Vista Ultimate as
primary boot and XP as secondary.
That is, I have Vista Ultimate on c drive and XP PRO SP2 on D drive.

I used VistaBoot Pro V3.2 (probably a demo) in Vista to create the
following:

There is currently 2 OS(s) installed on your system.
The current boot timeout is: 30

Default OS: VISTA

Entry 1
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: VISTA
BCD ID: {current}
Boot Drive: C:
Windows Drive: C:
System Bootloader: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry 2
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Name: XP
BCD ID: {ntldr}
Boot Drive: D:
System Bootloader: \ntldr

When I boot up, I get a menu asking me to choose between 'VISTA' and
'XP', which I deem to be correct.
The default is Vista. If I choose the Vista option, or choose it by
default, Vista comes up fine, with the XP drive as d drive.
If I choose the XP option, I get an error saying:

Invalid boot.ini file
Booting from c:\windows

AND IT JUST HANGS AT THAT POINT WITH A BLACK SCREEN!


On d drive (in XP), I have the boot.ini (which I believe was created
when XP was installed in the first place):

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP"
/noexecute=optin /fastdetect

I am getting frustrated, trying to get this dual boot to work. I hope
I have explained things carefully and correctly.

Can anyone advise? I am hoping some minor correction of an oversight
will make things go. Yes, I have read many of the blogs on this
subject, both via Google and these news groups. I am ready to quit.

Thanks

-GECKO

"gecko" <alpha@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:nk3i84t9vu9qpc95m6qcq0pqbao436qb13@xxxxxxCopies of the following XP files should also be in the root of your Vista
boot drive (C: boot.ini, ntldr, ndetect.com. I assume C: and D: are two
partitions on the same hard drive. If they are separate HDs, rdisk should
be (1) and partition should be (0) in both lines of boot.ini.

"Ian D" <taurus@xxxxxx> wrote in message
news:uw%231kCf7IHA.3724@xxxxxx---
This is true. The documentation (for bcdedit) is vague and makes it look as
if d:\ntldr will work, but it doesn't. You have to have c:\ntldr and files
it depends on, on the boot drive/partition. XP boot.ini does not depend on
drive letters, but rather rdisk and partition values.

Other ways that I have seen suggested are (1) change the active partition in
DOS fdisk or a similar utility, boot XP, change it back, boot Vista, etc.
and (2) change the boot drive in BIOS setup. Both have the advantage of
keeping system drives separate, no need for XP files on Vista partition and
vice versa, but they don't give you a boot time menu.

This is from bcdedit, but gecko's entry for XP should look something like
this instead of what he has now.

Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier {ntldr}
device partition=C:
path \ntldr
description Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition Service Pack 3

Saludos,

Earle

On Thu, 24 Jul 2008 21:12:19 -0400, "Rick Rogers" <rick@xxxxxx>
wrote:

D is a separate physical drive.
-GECKO

On Fri, 25 Jul 2008 06:12:48 -0400, "Rick Rogers" <rick@xxxxxx>
wrote:
Exactly right! Works fine now.

Thanks all.

The key was to put a copy of xp's boot.ini into Vista drive's boot
directory. If that was said anywhere, I missed it. Oh well.

-GECKO

"gecko" wrote:I haven't been following this thread, but Microsoft does not number
partitions starting with "0", and "partition (0)" in the boot.ini file is an
error. As for rdisk, "rdisk(1)" refers to the 2nd hard drive in the Hard
Drive Boot Order - not the boot drive. And the boot.ini file only has
meaning to ntldr, not to Vista's boot manager, and boot.ini should be in
the same file hierarchy at the same level as ntldr. If things have worked
out for you, I suspect that it was only by chance.

*TimDaniels*

On Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:47:49 -0700, "Timothy Daniels"
<NoSpam@xxxxxx> wrote:

Yes Tim - partition(0) does not work. partition(1) does.
rdisk numbering does start 0-up, which makes the XP drive rdisk(1).
You are correct again.

My setup did not work until I copied boot.ini, ntldr, and ntdetect.com
from XP drive to Vista drive (boot directory).

Yes my dual boot is still working fine. :>)

-GECKO