Windows 7 booting issue in XP machine

[liquidcrystal]

Hi

I have installed windows 7 beta on my windows XP machine,SATA hard disk. Issue: Unable to boot into win 7. XP boots fine.

C:\ had XP. Installed windows 7 to F:\ drive.

After installing I could boot into windows 7 and could work on it.
Later i found that windows 7 would boot (with the windows 7 boot manager) only when the windows 7 installation disc was on dvd drive.Otherwise only XP is shown in the boot selection menu - the standard old menu.

Now, even with the dvd, it does not boot into win 7. Instead it goes to the win7 install screen. But the installed files are still there in F drive. So, tried repair in win 7 for start up, but no problems were found.

Tried easyBCD from within XP, but that didnt help booting to win 7.

One peculiar thing I noticed is, although I installed win 7 to F: drive, when seen from within win 7, the installation drive was shown as C: drive. In reality the C:\ drive contains the xp installation. From within win Xp, win 7 installation files are in F: drive only. Is this the problem?

Now how do i boot into windows 7? Will adding some lines to boot.ini help in getting the windows 7 to the OS choice list?

Thanks.

 

[humphryboggie]

Have you tried to change the boot order for your drives to see if that would do anything?

 

[liquidcrystal]

Both C and F drives are in same physical hard disk.
I do have another hard disk attached but it has no OS.

Are you suggesting the boot order be changed within the same hard disk itself? If so, how to?

 

[humphryboggie]

Well the few times that I have tried dual booting two different OS's first with XP and Vista and then with Windows 7 and Vista I have always installed the newest OS first and in the install section set up your partitions. Then install your other OS on the new partition that you created. Hope this helps out.

 

[Fendulon]

I did a vista and windows 7 dual boot and yes it is normal to have Windows 7 show up as let's say F in XP but then when you are IN Windows 7, it is the C drive, and you will notice XP is either F or not showing up. It is just drive letter mapping and can be changed. You are better off with whatever OS you are booted in to being C so no conflicts happen.

Install easyBCD on your booted up XP machine and add a "vista" thing to your menu and have it select drive F as the target drive. Sometimes easyBCD is stupid so be 100% sure it is pointing to F. After you set it to F go and look at the boot.ini with the feature it gives you. Sorry I don't have the program installed, this is off the top of my head. There should be a way to independantly change your boot options within easyBCD after you add them, this is the way to change and BE SURE your windows 7 is booting off drive F. This worked for me.

 

[liquidcrystal]

I have configured it in EasyBCD from within XP, but there is no effect in boot.ini of XP.

EasyBCD:
There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 5 seconds.
Default OS: Windows 77

Entry #1

Name: Windows 77
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry #2

Name: Microsoft Windows XP
BCD ID: {ecadfcf8-0c24-11de-bd80-00221561b6f3}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

/******************************/

Boot.Ini
[boot loader]
timeout=3
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
C:\CMDCONS\BOOTSECT.DAT="Microsoft Windows Recovery Console" /cmdcons
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Can something be added directly to boot.ini

 

[Scotteq]

What is "Windows 77"??

Also, you should be using the newer *Win 7* boot loader, and not XP's.



Here'a Tutorial: http://neosmart.net/wiki/display/EBCD/Recovering%20the%20Vista%20Bootloader%20with%20EasyBCD

 

[liquidcrystal]

Thanks for the useful link.
steps 1,2 didnt work. Step 3 gave a message "boot files already present. they will not be created'.

Tried renaming boot folder in win 7 drive.Still same message.

 

[liquidcrystal]

Windows 77 is just a name i gave in easy bcd...wouldnt matter

 

[Zoron]

This is one reason I suggest installing alternate OSes on separate physical drives. I'm not sure that it would make a difference in your situation, but I know that I've never had an issue when using multiple OSes and having each on it's own hard drive.

 

[scyle]

I have a similar issue. I had 2 partitions on my hard drive. I had XP and win7. I had to reinstall and reformat the first partition, which had XP on it. After I reinstalled XP, the boot menu did not appear and I am not given the choice to boot into windows 7. Any ideas?

 

[kezix_69]

I think your problem is probably due to an issue with the Windows 7 recovery partition. It sounds like you don't have one. I would try repartitioning whatever part of your hard drive you plan to use for Windows 7 using the Windows 7 install partitioning.

Here is a thread containing more information about this. http://windows7forums.com/windows-7-discussion/3332-removing-recovery-partition.html#post16672

I had a similar problem on one of my computers, though I was not trying to dual boot. I had deleted the 200MB recovery partition without thinking it was needed. Not sure why I thought that, but it turns out Windows 7 needs that to boot. So getting that fixed up will make it so you don't need to have the Windows 7 install disk in the drive.

 

[Clatu]

Hi

I have installed windows 7 beta on my windows XP machine,SATA hard disk. Issue: Unable to boot into win 7. XP boots fine.

C:\ had XP. Installed windows 7 to F:\ drive.

After installing I could boot into windows 7 and could work on it.
Later i found that windows 7 would boot (with the windows 7 boot manager) only when the windows 7 installation disc was on dvd drive.Otherwise only XP is shown in the boot selection menu - the standard old menu.

Now, even with the dvd, it does not boot into win 7. Instead it goes to the win7 install screen. But the installed files are still there in F drive. So, tried repair in win 7 for start up, but no problems were found.

Tried easyBCD from within XP, but that didnt help booting to win 7.

One peculiar thing I noticed is, although I installed win 7 to F: drive, when seen from within win 7, the installation drive was shown as C: drive. In reality the C:\ drive contains the xp installation. From within win Xp, win 7 installation files are in F: drive only. Is this the problem?

Now how do i boot into windows 7? Will adding some lines to boot.ini help in getting the windows 7 to the OS choice list?

Thanks.

---

After reading most of this thread I'm finding myself wondering where I stand toward the future with buying 7 ? Who needs more headaches after Vista's incision into the world of MS Windows?

I'm actually using XP (32B) and quite satisfied with it's ease of use and allthe recognized software makers revolving their prgs to fit within it. Gosh-darn, can't the folks at MS just upgrade XP to XP2 ?

Thanks

 

[kezix_69]

---

After reading most of this thread I'm finding myself wondering where I stand toward the future with buying 7 ? Who needs more headaches after Vista's incision into the world of MS Windows?

I'm actually using XP (32B) and quite satisfied with it's ease of use and allthe recognized software makers revolving their prgs to fit within it. Gosh-darn, can't the folks at MS just upgrade XP to XP2 ?

Thanks

I don't think it is that difficult of a problem to fix. People ran into similar issues when Windows XP first came out. It's a new OS so there are a few things that are going to be different. Like I posted above the solution should be quite simple. Just repartition the part you want to have Windows 7 with the installer and it should create the 200MB partition that puts some boot/system files in a safe place.

I think it's a feature that makes quite a bit of sense though it would have been nice to know about it before hand.

Personally I'm quite tired of using XP. I've never used Vista. When I put Windows 7 on my 2.2Ghz dual core AMD / 4gb RAM, 8800GTS machine I actually saw improvements in most games of about 10-15 FPS and I see most things running a bit faster. I think it has to do with the fact that it is running in 64 bit rather than 32 bit more than anything. Maybe XP 64 bit would do the same thing but I would have to buy a new copy to use that anyway!

 

[sharp256]

Hi

In Windows Xp go to run and type msconfig this shows up System Config & boot is under one of the tabs so check boot and see whats there Windows Xp (Path) default OS & Windows 7 (Pathname) if only Windows XP is there reinstall windows 7 againe

cya

 

[Zoron]

---

After reading most of this thread I'm finding myself wondering where I stand toward the future with buying 7 ? Who needs more headaches after Vista's incision into the world of MS Windows?

I'm actually using XP (32B) and quite satisfied with it's ease of use and allthe recognized software makers revolving their prgs to fit within it. Gosh-darn, can't the folks at MS just upgrade XP to XP2 ?

Thanks

There's absolutely nothing wrong with Vista. Just because software / driver vendors couldn't be bothered to ensure compatibility doesn't mean it's the fault of the OS. Vista's bad rap is extremely undeserved. Having had a lot of experience with Vista personally (I use it on both my desktop and my laptop), I can say that the "issues" are completely blown out of proportion. Of course, it's easier to regurgitate FUD than it is to really form an honest opinion for yourself...

 

[liquidcrystal]

Hi

In Windows Xp go to run and type msconfig this shows up System Config & boot is under one of the tabs so check boot and see whats there Windows Xp (Path) default OS & Windows 7 (Pathname) if only Windows XP is there reinstall windows 7 againe

cya

Only XP is there in the path.
Could I not just add the win 7 path to the boot path?
Reinstall is a pain and the same issue might crop again?

 

[Scotteq]

XP's boot loader does not know how to access newer operating systems. Therefore you can't add 7 to XP's boot loader.