Editing the boot.ini

[cyber9]

I am trying to get back my dual boot that was working for me,
when it was working,
I had WinXP on Drive 0: Partition 2
I had Win7 on Drive 1; Partition 1

I had problems with windows xp which was the default os
and had to reformat and reinstall xp on same HD,

Now that XP is back up, I need to setup the dual boot,
shouldn't I just edit the boot.ini

right now it looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect


I need to add a line for Windows 7 Ultimate, what should it be?

I have backed up my boot.ini, and if I screw up on the boot.ini
I can use my HD usb adapter to put the boot.ini I have backed up
back in its place

 

[Garner6425]

Windows 7 does not use the boot.ini file, so editing it in WinXP won't work.

You need to either use BCDEdit.exe in a command prompt under Windows 7 or use a free program like EasyBCD.

 

[cyber9]

right now i can't boot windows 7, i can only boot windows xp,
windows 7 did work before i reinstalled xp,
i figure since both os's are on seperate drives i could edit the boot.ini,
since xp is being booted

and i tried using easybcd, and it doesn't work on xp

 

[Garner6425]

You could force it to boot to Win7 by disconnecting the drive containing WinXP. Or possibly mashing the F8 key to bring up the boot menu after POST. You should have the option to boot into Win7 from there.

 

[cyber9]

i tried to boot the second drive with windows 7 on it from the boot manager and it tells me,
"no boot device available"

if i can't get windows 7 to boot by editing the boot.ini on the first drive that has xp on it,
then do i need to use easybcd and try and edit the boot file on windows 7
to do that i would have to shut off computer and access it with my usb to IDE adapter,
then try and reboot

this is a dell computer

 

[Garner6425]

Yes. You need to get into Win7 somehow to fix the boot file. If you can't get the second HDD to boot, you can use a Windows 7 installation disk and perform a Startup Repair. That should fix things to allow you into Windows 7. From there you can edit the boot file using either of the methods I mentioned before to set your WinXP installation to default.

 

[cyber9]

well right or wrong here is what i did,

went to start; run, type "cmd"; when the command prompt opens, type "diskpart";
type "list disk"; select your disk number; ie: if your disk number was 0, you would type "select disk 0";
type "list partition", and it will show you all of your partitions, and each one's number

with that info i edited the xp boot.ini to look like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows 7 Ultimate" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

in the startup menu it finally gave me the option to boot to windows 7,
but when it went to boot up it said the file ntoskrnl.exe was possibly corrupt,
from what i know, it could be as simple as a usb(try another keyboard) issue,
or the boot file for windows 7 is not right(so maybe your right about the easybcd thingy)
or i would have to do a repair of windows 7 with the windows 7 disk, or reformat that drive,

i am also having a possibe power supply issue right now, so if you don't hear back on this,
means i couldn't edit the windows 7 boot file in order to work,
and that also means i would be redoing windows 7 HD