Vista - How to change Dual boot to Individual boot.

My hardware system has two physical drives and WXP is on the first drive
and WVT(Windows Vista) is on the second drive respectively. The physical
drives, the OSs, the drive names, and the location of WVT's "System"
files and "Boot" files are as follows:

1st Physical drive WXP D: System
2nd Physical drive WVT C: Boot

Note that the drive names shown above are those assigned when WVT is
booted.

My question: How can I remove the WVT's "System" files from WXP, AND
properly add them to WVT's installation? I want each of multiple OS's
installed to be a self-standing installation.

"churin" wrote:

> My hardware system has two physical drives and WXP is on the first drive
> and WVT(Windows Vista) is on the second drive respectively. The physical
> drives, the OSs, the drive names, and the location of WVT's "System"
> files and "Boot" files are as follows:
>
> 1st Physical drive WXP D: System
> 2nd Physical drive WVT C: Boot
>
> Note that the drive names shown above are those assigned when WVT is
> booted.
>
> My question: How can I remove the WVT's "System" files from WXP, AND
> properly add them to WVT's installation? I want each of multiple OS's
> installed to be a self-standing installation.
>
if you installed XP first and that drive was bootable before Vista, then it
will be easy. actually it is easy no matter... insert your XP install CD and
boot from it. once booted and you are at the install screen, choose "R" for
repair. this will put you into C: prompt then type "fixboot" then type "exit"
and the system will reboot. thats it you are done.
now you can select the drive from CMOS set up or from BOOT MENU if you have
it. if this did not work post with more info as to how you configured the
system originaly and such so peole here can get a better idea of what you
have.

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.


"churin" <churin@new.postalias> wrote in message
news:eJK7Fpt9GHA.5064@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> My hardware system has two physical drives and WXP is on the first drive
> and WVT(Windows Vista) is on the second drive respectively. The physical
> drives, the OSs, the drive names, and the location of WVT's "System" files
> and "Boot" files are as follows:
>
> 1st Physical drive WXP D: System
> 2nd Physical drive WVT C: Boot
>
> Note that the drive names shown above are those assigned when WVT is
> booted.
>
> My question: How can I remove the WVT's "System" files from WXP, AND
> properly add them to WVT's installation? I want each of multiple OS's
> installed to be a self-standing installation.

"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.

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.

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.
>
>
>

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.
>>
>>
>>

John Barnes wrote:

> 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.
>

When XP alone is installed, the MBR on the first bootable disk points to
the boot sector of the XP partition. If you now install Vista on another
partition (perhaps on a different hard drive) then (as I understand it)
the boot files on the XP partition get modified, but the MBR still
points to the boot sector of the XP partition (as it has to, or nothing
would boot). Now there may be technical differences in the MBR after
Vista is installed, but the key information on where to look for the
boot files must be the same.

Otherwise, boot managers like Ranish ot BootIt NG (BING) would not work,
because they operate by modifying the MBR to a "standard MBR" which
points to the boot sector of the selected OS. Any other info in the MBR
(except the partition table of course) cannot therefore be crucial.

BTW, all these things are much easier to do if you use a third party
boot manager. I highly recommend BING. You can just forget about NTDLR
and the Vista boot loader and all that stuff. Each OS is installed
separately, and you can install or reinstall them in any order. I'm not
sure if BING can recover from a situation where both XP and Vista are
already installed, but it is possible. Certainly you can use it if you
already have one OS installed.

David Wilkinson

The mbr looks up in its tables the active partition and reads the boot
sector for the bootloader, which has to be on that (system drive) for
Windows. If it is XP it points to ntldr, if Vista to the boot file. As far
as ntldr is concerned, that performs several functions one of which is to
read the boot.ini and either goes driectly to the boot drive in the boot.ini
or presents the menu to select from multiple boot drives. On the boot
partition it loads the ntoskrnl.exe and hal.dll starting XP. Don't know
the process for Vista.


"David Wilkinson" <no-reply@effisols.com> wrote in message
news:OLQaTv49GHA.4468@TK2MSFTNGP05.phx.gbl...
> John Barnes wrote:
>
>> 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.
>>
>
> When XP alone is installed, the MBR on the first bootable disk points to
> the boot sector of the XP partition. If you now install Vista on another
> partition (perhaps on a different hard drive) then (as I understand it)
> the boot files on the XP partition get modified, but the MBR still points
> to the boot sector of the XP partition (as it has to, or nothing would
> boot). Now there may be technical differences in the MBR after Vista is
> installed, but the key information on where to look for the boot files
> must be the same.
>
> Otherwise, boot managers like Ranish ot BootIt NG (BING) would not work,
> because they operate by modifying the MBR to a "standard MBR" which points
> to the boot sector of the selected OS. Any other info in the MBR (except
> the partition table of course) cannot therefore be crucial.
>
> BTW, all these things are much easier to do if you use a third party boot
> manager. I highly recommend BING. You can just forget about NTDLR and the
> Vista boot loader and all that stuff. Each OS is installed separately, and
> you can install or reinstall them in any order. I'm not sure if BING can
> recover from a situation where both XP and Vista are already installed,
> but it is possible. Certainly you can use it if you already have one OS
> installed.
>
> David Wilkinson

John Barnes wrote:

> The mbr looks up in its tables the active partition and reads the boot
> sector for the bootloader, which has to be on that (system drive) for
> Windows. If it is XP it points to ntldr, if Vista to the boot file. As far
> as ntldr is concerned, that performs several functions one of which is to
> read the boot.ini and either goes driectly to the boot drive in the boot.ini
> or presents the menu to select from multiple boot drives. On the boot
> partition it loads the ntoskrnl.exe and hal.dll starting XP. Don't know
> the process for Vista.
>

The MBR does not load a file on the active (boot) partition; rather it
transfers control to some address in the boot sector of the active
partition. It seems to me that this address must be the same for a
machine that has only XP on it, and one that has only Vista, and one
that has both. That is why the MBR can be (essentially) the same for
different OS's.

David Wilkinson