If you want to install Vista onto an XP computer, try the reverse tutorial: (XP already installed) (How to Dual Boot Windows XP and Vista)Click here to read the entire tutorial

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</Dream In Code>
-William. § (marvin_gohan)

Hi,
Ok, I do have the video card slot but I am using the onboard (built in) video.
I will try what you say and let you know.
Thanks..
Bruce

William,

Firstly a big thanks for writing the article

Secondly, I have a Dell XPS which originally came with XP Pro but I bought Vista Business a while ago and reformatted with that. I have also just installed XP on another partition and that loads fine.

The part where I'm stuck is section 3 where I type "Bootrec.exe fixMBR" and "Bootrec.exe fixBoot". The both appear to work although when I reboot it's not into Vista, it's still into XP Pro. Do you have any ideas as I've followed the rest of your script?

Many thanks in advance.

Best regards,

Andy

try using the vista recovery console (i believe that is what it's called) instead of the command prompt and see if that does the trick. Vista should be putting it's bootloader into the MBR, but it seems like it is not. Let me know how you make out with this, and i will look into other options.
- what is your motherboard?
- what is partition setup on your hard drive?

Wow - thanks for the fast response William

I've actually sorted it now. The problem lied in bcdedit where my Vista installation was pointing to the same place as XP Pro. After first running "Bootrec.exe /fixBoot" and "Bootrec.exe /fixMBR" I immmediately ran bcdedit but I think I must have made a typo and edited the file in the wrong way.

I first tried the recovery console before discovering this and it found nothing wrong but I guess it wouldn't as as far as it was concerned it was booting up correctly.

I then booted up with the Vista CD again with a view reinstalling it, but the upgrade option (where I can keep all my files) is only available from within Windows!

I then booted one last time with the Vista CD to take one last look at bcdedit and it was then that I noticed the error. My file showed Vista in {default} not {current} which I thought was ok but it showed the path as /ntldr which I thought was wrong so I edited it again to change just the path. I guessed at the command "bcdedit –set {default} path \windows\system32\winload.exe" as I thought I had nothing to lose if it didn't work... Fortunately it did!

Thanks again for your help. It now works like a dream, all thanks to your article

Kind regards,

Andy

Hi William
I did find nlite, used it to put SP2 onto a new Setup Disk with XP Pro and everything went great. XP installed with no problems!!!
I am very thankful for your time and help with this. You made my day!!!!
Thank You!!!!
Bruce

Hey William,

First off, thanks so much for writing this tutorial. I bought an hp pavilion with vista only because I knew I'd be able to dual boot from following your instructions.

I made it 3/4 of the way through your tutorial without a hitch, but now the bcdedit commands are throwing me for a loop.

I keep getting errors when trying to run the first bcdedit -set {ntldr} device partition=C: command

This is what i get, followed by my current bcdedit screen.


Microsoft Windows [Version 6.0.6000]
Copyright (c) 2006 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit -set {ntldr} device partition=C:
An error occurred while attempting to reference the specified entry.
The system cannot find the file specified.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=C:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {8c384824-6ff0-11db-8455-0016d303c84f}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Microsoft Windows Vista
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {572bcd55-ffa7-11d9-aae2-0007e994107d}
recoveryenabled Yes
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {8c384824-6ff0-11db-8455-0016d303c84f}
nx OptIn

C:\Windows\system32>


I know my vista partition is on the C drive, but it doesn't seem to recognize anything.

Any help will be greatly appreciated as I am ready to pull my hair out. Thanks.

- Pete

Okay so like, uhm.
Has anyone gotten this to work on an Acer laptop? I have an...uh...Aspire 5633 or something.

I've tried another method of dual booting XP (with Vista in first) but it ended up in failure. I couldn't get back into Vista, so I ended up doing a restore.

So...any successes with Acers?

I I everything in step one but when I when to go install XP on the partition that I made for it XP is saying that I do not have any hard drives connected to the computer. I curently have 4 hard drives in my computer 2 of them are in raid 0 (this is vista) and 2 other drives with one of those being the one with the partition for XP. So I was wondering what would be making XP not register that I have hard drives attached then?

Thanks in advance,
James

Everything worked great up until step 4 for me. Then when I tried to edit the boot entries, the dreaded:
An error occurred while attempting to reference the specified entry.
The system cannot find the file specified.

I just used the EasyBCD and created the boot sequence from there. Much easier and no errors. Got dual boot! Thanks OP. Made my day.

It's true that the boot record part isn't fool proof, as is seen through several comments. BCD is a great app, and i'm glad you got it working