error loading operating system vista

[halomunkey]

Hi

I just installed vista onto my computer probably a few days ago and it was working fine. Before that I was trying to partition my hard drive so I can keep my windows xp files and use vista at the same time. well it erased the windows xp and didnt create the other partition so I was left to either installing a new xp or vista....I chose vista for some odd reason.....

but to my problem....

well yesterday I decided to stop being lazy and install xp in a different partition. so I booted the windows xp cd and created a new partition using it, it restarts but it doesnt continue the installation....so I tried to install it again but after it reboots it wouldnt continue. So then I tried to boot to vista and I get "error loading operating system"

I tried using ptedit to see if it was hidden but vista was active. So I decided that maybe deleting the partition would work so I deleted it and I still keep getting the same message.

any remedies?

thanks

btw I want it back because I have tons of important files on it.(so stupid shouldve just installed xp in the first place....)
thanks again!!!

 

[halomunkey]

anybody

 

[Xcape]

Looks like you damaged the boot loader. The boot loader is looking for a drive that doesnt exist anymore. Search online for info on how to fix the Vista boot loader since it changed a lot since XP.

 

[halomunkey]

Looks like you damaged the boot loader. The boot loader is looking for a drive that doesnt exist anymore. Search online for info on how to fix the Vista boot loader since it changed a lot since XP.

gah....ive been searching on google forever now....AND I CANT FIND ANTHING!!!

so can somebody just point me to a guide or something....

 

[SNGX1275]

Does XP boot now? If so just re-install vista, it will see the working XP and set up the dual boot for you.

 

[halomunkey]

no I couldnt install xp at all....I tried making another partition with the windows xp disk and install it onto that partition but when it says after restart it will continue setup, it restarts but doesnt continue the setup. Now It wont even boot up the setup.

but it will boot up the vista setup. all the important files I have are on the vista one though(gah....)

 

[SNGX1275]

Installing XP after vista is going to be a pain and its probably going ot be tough to find too much information on that right now because it hasn't been out too long and unlike XP and 2k and NT, Vista's bootloader I believe is completely different. I say that because it looks a hell of a lot different and on mine it completely ignores XPs bootloader until I've already told it I want to boot into older version of windows - at that point it shoots me to my XP boot menu where I choose XP or XP64.

What if you repair/overwite the MBR. I know you can do it by fdisk /mbr but I forget how you get there off the XP install disk. But maybe doing that will kill vista's bootloader and allow you to install and actually get XP to continue after the initial install. But then your Vista likely won't boot and you'll have to see if you can do a repair of that... Even if you can't repair vista, you should be able to see those files you need from within XP.

 

[halomunkey]

Installing XP after vista is going to be a pain and its probably going ot be tough to find too much information on that right now because it hasn't been out too long and unlike XP and 2k and NT, Vista's bootloader I believe is completely different. I say that because it looks a hell of a lot different and on mine it completely ignores XPs bootloader until I've already told it I want to boot into older version of windows - at that point it shoots me to my XP boot menu where I choose XP or XP64.

What if you repair/overwite the MBR. I know you can do it by fdisk /mbr but I forget how you get there off the XP install disk. But maybe doing that will kill vista's bootloader and allow you to install and actually get XP to continue after the initial install. But then your Vista likely won't boot and you'll have to see if you can do a repair of that... Even if you can't repair vista, you should be able to see those files you need from within XP.

well right now im just ignoring installing xp and I just want to get vista back, thats what I'm asking. As soon as I get back to vista im just going to copy all the files I need to my ipod then just uninstall vista and reinstall xp.

 

[SNGX1275]

You are probably going to have to do your own research and googling then if you don't care to give my suggestion a shot. I'm not sure anyone on these boards has botched up their Vista install and had to deal with a problem like yours.

I googled for repair vista and repairing vista and didn't come up with much, one site said a guide was "COMMING SOON", so if you are really stubborn keep refreshing their page every day until their guide makes it up.

You could boot back up from the vista cd and see if there are any options to repair/reinstall/install like you can do with XP.

You can get to your data in several ways but it appears you are limiting yourself to only one way - which may not even be possible with a beta vista.

 

[halomunkey]

You are probably going to have to do your own research and googling then if you don't care to give my suggestion a shot. I'm not sure anyone on these boards has botched up their Vista install and had to deal with a problem like yours.

I googled for repair vista and repairing vista and didn't come up with much, one site said a guide was "COMMING SOON", so if you are really stubborn keep refreshing their page every day until their guide makes it up.

You could boot back up from the vista cd and see if there are any options to repair/reinstall/install like you can do with XP.

You can get to your data in several ways but it appears you are limiting yourself to only one way - which may not even be possible with a beta vista.

oh sorry I forgot to tell you about your suggestion. wouldnt installing xp on a new partition not show the files from the other one? I'm not really sure what your saying. Are you talking about installing xp over vista? or install it on a different partition?

 

[SNGX1275]

New partition. XP won't screw up vista's files if you put it on a seperate partition. But both Partitions will likely be NTFS formatted, and they (XP and Vista) can read that. So you could get your data.

 

[halomunkey]

New partition. XP won't screw up vista's files if you put it on a seperate partition. But both Partitions will likely be NTFS formatted, and they (XP and Vista) can read that. So you could get your data.

ok ill try that