Trying to Reverse Dual Boot--Hmmm? Installing and Upgrading Vista Discuss Trying to Reverse Dual Boot--Hmmm? in the Windows Vista forums; Fantastic info felix. Waiting to see them try it out crabby...

[crabby]

Fantastic info felix.

Waiting to see them try it out

crabby

[Znod]

Originally Posted by crabby

I was apologising because I underestimated your experiment Altering core windows files is a biggy! If you google 'edit boot.ini' you will get quite a lot of useful information. Here is a useful guide from Microsoft:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/289022

However, Vista uses a different format to XP, so have a look at it yours and make sure you FULLY understand it If you want, post it here and I can have a look!

crabby

Thanks much crabby. I'll be looking into it. Check out the question I asked above. I like to know its answer before I think about editing things I know nothing about.

[Znod]

Originally Posted by felix8406

This is part of an article from Microsoft:

When you install an earlier version of the Windows operating system on a Windows Vista-based computer, Setup overwrites everything from the MBR, the boot sector, and the boot files. Therefore, the earlier version the Windows operating system loses forward compatibility with Windows Vista.

RESOLUTION
To resolve these issues, follow these steps.

Note: You can run the commands in the following procedure by using the command prompt. If you run these commands in Windows Vista, run them at a command prompt that has elevated user rights. To do this, click Start, click Accessories, right-click the command-prompt shortcut, and then click Run as Administrator.

1. Use Bootsect.exe to restore the Windows Vista MBR and the boot code that transfers control to the Windows Boot Manager program. To do this, type the following command at a command prompt: Drive:\boot\ Bootsect.exe –NT60 All

In this command, Drive is the drive where the Windows Vista installation media is located.

2. Use Bcdedit.exe to manually create an entry in the BCD Boot.ini file for the earlier version of the Windows operating system. To do this, type the following commands at a command prompt.

• Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit –create {ntldr} –d “Description for earlier Windows version”

Note: In this command, Description for earlier Windows version can be any text that you want. For example, Description for earlier Windows version can be "Windows XP” or “Windows Server 2003."

• Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit –set {ntldr} device partition=x:

Note In this command, x: is the drive letter for the active partition.

• Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit –set {ntldr} path \ntldr
• Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit –displayorder {ntldr} –addlast

You can get more info at: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529

Great felix. Thank you very much for the insights. But, I have a confusion or five, of course.

Does the above procedure acknowledge, in effect, that installing XP after Vista eliminates the ability to boot to Vista. That's what happened to me. If so, then how could I use the command prompt on the Vista drive (or partition).

Also, does the procedure's validity depend in any way on which drive the systems are to be installed on. Please recall that I want Vista on the 0 drive and that Vista was on this drive when the installation of XP on the 1 drive wiped out my ability to boot to Vista.

The 0 drive is the default drive, right? So, I am assuming that there would be an advantage to having one's primary system on the default drive. Am I correct on both counts? Thanks much again.

[crabby]

Znod, to do the commands listed by Felix, you can use the XP run command.

If you install with the other hard drives removed each time, then you just use the bios to boot from the hard drive you want (best if your bios has a 'select boot device' menu).

The default drive is simply because it is connected to the first SATA port, speed, efficiency etc will not be affected by using a drive on another port for you o/s.

crabby

[felix8406]

Yes Z, like crabby said, whether you installed Vista on 0 or 1 drive doesn't really matter unless one of them is an inferior drive to the other, access time, speed, etc. In that case I would install Vista on the better drive; though I did install Vista on a 5400 RPM drive and really didn’t notice any difference, but I didn’t run any tests to confirm it.

Also, if you run into any issues you can go to http://support.microsoft.com/kb/919529 where there’s plenty of info about dual booting.