Dual boot vista & xp

[chadlebowski]

hi - i've tried everything and can't manage dual booting.
I have bcdedit, everyhting seems right, and dual booting used to work.
I don't have immediate access to my xp and vista install disks
now the pc just boots straight into xp, and i can't get the boot option menu

ta

 

[kimsland]

Here is an excellent page: http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm
But mentions to have your discs, at various stages (that you strangely don't have)

The above link also gives reference to EasyBCD which may help in recovering your bootloader for Vista.

That's about all I have, without the discs!

 

[chadlebowski]

Hey

I used that "apc mag" page when doing this the first time round!
And i've just moved house, and left installation disks behind - I'll get the girlfriend to post them down, and in the meantime keep scouring!

Cheers

 

[kimsland]

So did you try EasyBCD ?
Also, did you want to copy/paste your boot.ini file here

Otherwise just wait for the discs.

 

[chadlebowski]

hey!

I got the vista disc; although i messed up my xp boot (via device manager, i think), and can't get it back! Do you perhaps know if theres a way to edit an xp boot.ini without running xp itself?

 

[kimsland]

Good news.

You can edit the boot.ini from a command line too
Running any Windows CD to the Recovery command will do.

Firstly you need to remove the Read only attribute:
c:\>attrib -R boot.ini
You can also unhide it
c:\>attrib -H boot.ini
And even Edit it
c:\>Edit boot.ini
Pressing ALT->Down Arrow ->Save
Once complete
(you can reset the Hidden and Read Only attributes back once in Windows again)

The above commands can be done by changeing to the HardDrive C:
And going to the root of the drive CD\

 

[chadlebowski]

Hey

I got as far as trying to de-attrib bot.ini - it said not resetting hidden file. Tried running cmd as administrator, couldn't change drive to xp... there was no -r attrib on the file.

I'll give it a whirl in safe mode

 

[kimsland]

attrib -h -s -r c:\boot.ini

Should work, (It says: remove Hidden, Remove System, Remove Read Only.)