Toshiba boot error

[marvolo1300]

Hi i am getting a a boot error with my toshiba satellite. It came preinstalled with vista home premium. I tried to make the laptop dual boot between xp and vista. When i partitioned my harddrive it wouldnt recognize the partition so i set a BIOS option from ACPH to dynamic. I installed windows to the vista partition and i shut down the computer while it was formatting. i realized my mistake when i tried to boot vista and i got a blinking cursor and a toshiba splash screen loop. I then tried to install xp again, thinking that before installation the XP CD formatting the harddrive to NTFS would fix the problem. It didnt. I tried going to the boot menu and setting the HDD to 1. That didnt work either.

UPDATE: The error flashes for half a second. It says invalid boot.ini
UPDATE: The laptop is toshiba l300

 

[EDO219]

wow ... I would just do a fresh Vista install with your included recovery disks. There should be an option to format and delete the partitions before installing the OS.

Originally, how did you create the drive partition? My memory is fuzzy, but I remember needing to use Vista's built in disk management tool since my XP installation disks failed to create a proper drive partition.

Out of curiosity, what is your motivation for dual-booting Vista and XP?

 

[marvolo1300]

The VIsta Restore CD wasn't included and i like xp better

 

[EDO219]

Ah, so you don't have a restore disk for Vista and your XP disk failed to format the drive.

Often, I use an HDD USB adapter like this one to format stubborn drives with a working PC. It basically turns an internal HDD into a giant USB flash drive, making it easier to successfully format it.

EDIT: Does your HDD have a separate partition with the Vista recovery files on it?

 

[marvolo1300]

I went out and got a Vista Installation CD and it worked. There was something wrong with the boot.ini file.

 

[Bricklnoes]

TO get into your bios you need to press F2, F8 or F12. When you turn your computer on it will tell you which one it is. Then when your in your bios just change your hard drive to boot first