Seriously screwed boot.ini

[todd5854]

I knew it was a stupid mistake, but I thought I had the right tools to fix this.

I had Windows 7 build 7000 on my computer, and I wanted to get rid of it, just for something else, having weird hardware issues..

The long story..short story under it

So knowing I don't have anything I need to backup, I pop in the XP Pro disk, and install Windows. Restarts, I get "Error Loading Operating system." Expecting this, I get my CD That searches and boots up Windows XP, and finish installing windows. Bootmanager is obviously still messed up (No longer can I access Windows 7) And the computer needs that special cd (A friend gave it to me, I would tell the name of it but I don't know it or where it came from and it's a burned cd) to even boot into windows. So Now to twist things up even more, I add Vista into the mix. 3 different partitions, 1 drive. It's only a 500gb, but that's all I got for now. To me, it's obvious the boot record is messed up. I just don't know how to fix this.

Short story

First I installed Windows 7. Then I installed XP. Then I installed Vista. 3 different partitons, 1 drive. I screwed up the boot.ini boot manager completely (doesn't even show up, just a blinking cursor after BIOS Splash screen) However I can still get into one OS, so file browsing/etc is possible. (XP Still hasn't screwed me over!)


Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated. ~Todd

 

[Scotteq]

You should install from Old to New, always. So your order should have been, XP first, then Vista, then 7.

If you can boot to the 7 install disc, do so and let it do it's thing. When you get to the part where it asks if you want to install, look in the lower left hand corner for "Repair". Select that. It'll come back and say it found a problem and offer to fix it. Say yes, and that should do it.

If not, you may try to repair it with a 3rd party boot utility, like Easy BCD. If that fails, then you have to wipe and start over again.

 

[todd5854]

That will fix my 3 way boot loader? Thank you

 

[ko888]

That will fix my 3 way boot loader? Thank you

You need to run the boot sector restoration tool.

I know this tool is in the BOOT directory of the Vista installation CD and it's named bootsect.exe.

You need the 32-bit version that would be on a Vista X86 CD so that you can run it in a Command Prompt window in Windows XP.

Running the following command should update the master boot code on your physical boot drive and restore NTLDR that is used for Windows XP:

bootsect /nt52 D:

In the above example the D: drive letter is not necessarily where the master boot code resides on you system. If you don't know the drive letter to use you can also run the following command instead:

bootsect /nt52 ALL

 

[todd5854]

Thanks for the help. I combined both of these posts to fix the problem. I used the vista CD to hit repair, fixed the 3 way bootloader in one shot. I consider myself lucky this time.