Vista - Missing dual boot Vista & XP

Whether he wants to change 1 or 2 numbers in the boot.ini or reinstall the
system is up to him.

"Timothy Daniels" <NoSpam@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:OCXNQTC5HHA.748@TK2MSFTNGP04.phx.gbl...
> "John Barnes" wrote:
>> Open the boot.ini file with notepad. Look at the entry, particularly
>> in the default position and see if it matches where XP is. rdisk is
>> numbered 0,1,2 etc and partitions 1,2,3 etc. I'm not on my dual
>> boot computer now, so I can't copy a line here, but partition is
>> pretty easy as you can look in disk management and see which partition it
>> is on, the rdisk usually corresponds with that in disk management. Don't
>> know if you have more than one drive, anyway.
>
>
> "rdisk(x)" corresponds to the Hard Drive Boot Order in the BIOS.
> This may be called by various names in different BIOSes, but it
> is the boot priority for the HDs (and *just* the HDs). The *default*
> HD Boot Order for PATA HDs is:
> Master, IDE ch. 0,
> Slave, IDE ch. 0.
> Master, IDE ch. 1,
> Slave, IDE ch. 1.
>
> In such a boot order, the HD jumpered as Master on IDE ch. 0
> will be "rdisk0)" and it will get control at startup. But that boot
> order can be changed manually in the BIOS by the user. And
> the HD at the head of the list will be "rdisk(0)", and *that* HD
> will get control.
>
> In the HD location paths in the boot.ini file, "rdisk(1)" refers to
> the HD next in the HD Boot Priority, and "rdisk(2)" refers to the
> next HD in the HD Boot Priority, etc.
>
> The numbering for SATA drives follows the no. of the SATA
> port to which the SATA HD is connected. For motherboards
> which have both PATA and SATA HD controllers, usually one
> numbering system follows the other.
>
> To avoid further futzing around by the Original Poster (unless he
> has time for experimentation), I suggest that he simply re-install
> Vista while keeping the XP installation visible to the Vista installer,
> and the Vista installer will set up the dual-boot parameters
> automatically.
>
> *TimDaniels*
>

Your comments are interesting, and I'm trying to understand them.
The drift I get is that Vista employs ntldr (and thus boot.ini and
perhaps ntdetect.com) to boot XP. That is plausible and it would
conveniently re-use the WinNT/2K/XP boot processes for booting
those OSes. But what is "xp86" that you mention?

You are correct that ntldr wouldn't present an on-screen boot menu
if there were only one entry under "[operating systems]" in the boot.ini
file. But boot.ini is required as a pointer to the OS for ntldr, even if
the the OS resides on the same partition as ntldr. Ntldr really doesn't
care *which* partition in the system contains the OS - it will even
boot a Windows NT/2K/XP OS from an Extended partition (I've
tried it). But it must point to it for ntldr to work, and it doesn't care
whether the partition is its own or another one. All that is required is
that ntldr and boot.ini and ntdetect.com reside under the root of the
Primary partition that is marked "active" on the HD designated by the
BIOS.

*TimDaniels*

"John Barnes" wrote:
> Look at his entry - system bootloader ntldr
> I have both xp64 and xp86 on one of my Vista systems and I assure
> you that the boot screen presented to me each time I select legacy os
> is from the boot.ini.
> The boot.ini would not be required if the os to be loaded is on the same
> partition as the ntldr and the boot selection screen isn't presented if only 1
> entry exists.
>
> Entry 2
> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
> Name: Microsoft Windows XP
> BCD ID: {f1006f2f-4ee8-11dc-a1d6-0013d4991b0f}
> Boot Drive: D:
> System Bootloader: \ntldr
>
>
> "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
>> "John Barnes" wrote:
>>> Check your boot.ini to make sure that you have the entry pointing to the
>>> proper rdisk and partition.
>>
>>
>> Does the Vista boot manager use boot.ini when booting XP?
>> It's likely that only ntldr (the NT/2K/XP) boot manager/loader
>> uses boot.ini .
>>
>> *TimDaniels*
>>
>

Vista bootloader passes control to the ntldr if a legacy system using it is
selected. Windows98 has another process that is best accessed thru the
ntldr. XP86 is just another way of referring to the 32-bit version.

"Timothy Daniels" <NoSpam@SpamMeNot.com> wrote in message
news:u%23BJq$G5HHA.536@TK2MSFTNGP06.phx.gbl...
> Your comments are interesting, and I'm trying to understand them.
> The drift I get is that Vista employs ntldr (and thus boot.ini and
> perhaps ntdetect.com) to boot XP. That is plausible and it would
> conveniently re-use the WinNT/2K/XP boot processes for booting
> those OSes. But what is "xp86" that you mention?
>
> You are correct that ntldr wouldn't present an on-screen boot menu
> if there were only one entry under "[operating systems]" in the boot.ini
> file. But boot.ini is required as a pointer to the OS for ntldr, even if
> the the OS resides on the same partition as ntldr. Ntldr really doesn't
> care *which* partition in the system contains the OS - it will even
> boot a Windows NT/2K/XP OS from an Extended partition (I've
> tried it). But it must point to it for ntldr to work, and it doesn't care
> whether the partition is its own or another one. All that is required is
> that ntldr and boot.ini and ntdetect.com reside under the root of the
> Primary partition that is marked "active" on the HD designated by the
> BIOS.
>
> *TimDaniels*
>
> "John Barnes" wrote:
>> Look at his entry - system bootloader ntldr
>> I have both xp64 and xp86 on one of my Vista systems and I assure
>> you that the boot screen presented to me each time I select legacy os
>> is from the boot.ini.
>> The boot.ini would not be required if the os to be loaded is on the same
>> partition as the ntldr and the boot selection screen isn't presented if
>> only 1 entry exists.
>>
>> Entry 2
>> -----------------------------------------------------------------------
>> Name: Microsoft Windows XP
>> BCD ID: {f1006f2f-4ee8-11dc-a1d6-0013d4991b0f}
>> Boot Drive: D:
>> System Bootloader: \ntldr
>>
>>
>> "Timothy Daniels" wrote:
>>> "John Barnes" wrote:
>>>> Check your boot.ini to make sure that you have the entry pointing to
>>>> the proper rdisk and partition.
>>>
>>>
>>> Does the Vista boot manager use boot.ini when booting XP?
>>> It's likely that only ntldr (the NT/2K/XP) boot manager/loader
>>> uses boot.ini .
>>>
>>> *TimDaniels*
>>>
>>
>
>