Dual Boot Vista and XP with Vista already installed

If you want to install Vista onto an XP computer, try the reverse tutorial: (XP already installed)
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-William. § (marvin_gohan)

i have xp installed on my 2nd partition with drivers and all. then i went on to recovery my vista, installed EasyBCD 1.7, added Windows XP as another booting choice. Restarted, chose Windows XP, but XP failed to load!!! , saying something like file system corrupted or missing from \NTLD ?? My Vista still works fine though. Please help

I created the 4g partition just fine. I'm using an XP Restore disk from a long gone laptop, it works just fine, its an SP1. But it does nothing on the Toshiba, the choice to install XP is greyed out.

I'm thinking the Vista operating system is interfering?

William, this is a great thread, but one question keeps cropping up where there does not appear to be an answer yet, unless I've missed it !!
I refer to the use of the Vista install disc & Repair. Does it need a full Vista disc or will it work with the Recovery Disc that most manufacturers supply with new PCs ?
Also has anyone had success with a Recovery Disc or similar ?

Ok, so after giving up on installing XP on Vista I went about trying to install XP first, and then Vista as I've read from different sources that it just works easier that way.

So I install XP, run through some updates, and install some drivers and notice that the first time I booted without the disk in the drive I got a "NTLDR is missing" error. I sort of ignored this error since it would boot fine with the CD in and thought that maybe when I installed Vista it would fix it.

Well I install Vista and get the same "NTLDR is missing" error. I've run repair from both CD's. I've used fixMBR, and fixBOOT. I've used /copy to copy a new ntldr and ntdetect.com file. In the process I've learned way more about how a computer boots up than I've ever wanted to know. I rewrote my boot.ini file in XP only to find that it was a moot point since Vista takes over with Windows Boot Manager after the ntldr error is avoided by having the CD in. I've used bcdedit to both screw up and then fix the xp bootable option (that was fun).

Long story short, everything works perfectly so long as either my Vista or XP CD is in when I start up. Otherwise I get the NTLDR error. I've read every help guild I could find and either I'm doing something wrong or they didn't work. I'm thinking it could be a partition error. I have 3 partitions: the first is my XP partition, second is my Vista partition, and third is just file storage. My XP and Vista partition are primary partitions and the 3rd one is a logical partition. Since NTLDR doesn't exist in Vista whatever is causing the error I'm pretty sure is on the XP side, but as I've said, I've been unable to isolate it. I appreciate any help you could offer.

Hello, and thank you for your tutorial. It is very well explained, but I have a couple of errors.

When I try to format the new space from shrinking my main partition, it becomes an Extended Partition Logical Drive instead of a Primary Partition. How do I fix this?

Here is my disk manager setup:

0 - (Hidden) - EISA Configuration
2 - My Book (E: ) - Primary Partition (this is a external USB hdd)
0 - OS (C: ) - System, Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition -
0 - RECOVERY (D: ) - Primary Partition
0 - Unallocated 17.09 GB
5 - Flashdrive (L: ) - Active, Primary Partition

My second error occurred when proceeding to install Windows XP Pro with leaving the partition I plan to install it on unformatted.

The initial CD loading its files works fine until it says it's preparing to load Windows XP, shortly after I get a BSOD. The BSOD says something to the effect of "check your computer for viruses, remove any newly-installed hard drives, run check disk on F (it was either F or L, I can't remember)"

I'm going to try running the installation without the L: Flash drive in now, but if that doesn't work I'd appreciate an answer, even if you don't know what the problem is.

Thanks

Edit: Nevermind, it was CHKDSK /F, not on F.

If you don't have a vista disk you can use the upgrade CD to boot from and repair the bootmanager.

At this stage, vista cannot interfere. XP restore disks do not always allow for installation, or have all the features associated with a regular disc.

A good question, one which i do not have the answer to at this time. I will do some research, and try and get my hands on a recovery disc and attempt the process myself.
If when you load the disc there is an option to repair boot and for a dos prompt it should be. Enter the dos prompt and type bcedit.exe without any tags, if it is available then it will prompt you with either to press help, or the help page itself. If this happens, then yes, it works.

I have not used an upgrade CD as of yet either. If you follow the steps in post above, it will not alter any files on your computer, but simply test that the options for recovering a boot manager is available.

This is often a mistake in the step where XP is added to vista. Could you post the partition label vista is on, and your bcdedit file from in vista?