This may help a bit

http://neosmart.net/forums/showthread.php?t=1068
http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_v...ide.htm?page=4

Easiest thing to do really is just manually edit your boot.ini file on the master drive and partition

Looks like this:

[boot loader]
timeout=30 /usepmtimer
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /fastdetect /usepmtimer /NoExecute=OptIn

This is for a single boot system - but you just add the additional operation systems with arguements that you want - pointing it to the correct disk/partition
For example - if win7 is 0/0/0/1 (which is likely is) and XP is on the second partition - then xp is on 0/0/0/2
If its on the second drive - its /0/1/0/1

You can of course use a third party boot manager - or LiLo which many of my linux friends insist is the best option, but I personally just make the change manually in the boot.ini file.

Hi. I've been looking for a guide for this dual-boot issue cause i'll be soon doing it for my laptop and i found the following online guide. As i said i haven't tried it yet but it sure looks promising i.e. no room for misunderstandings. Please tell me your opinion. The guide too refers to the EasyBCD solution.:arrgh!:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials...dows-7-xp.html

Can't really comment on something I barely grasp. I needed help for a reason. :lol:



Longam, any luck yet? :06:

Well, at least i tried. I thought it would help. Good luck!

That other drive is my original Dell drive with the mirrored partition at the root. I think matbe that is keeping the drive from being recognized properly.

Yep thats the way it works, might be different with Win 7 but like longam said always the lowest OS first on C then Vista on D etc., A partition manager will let you choose any OS to be first to boot so it wouldn't matter otherwise. I use 'Paragon Partition Manager 10', lets you setup partitions, choose what OS you want to make active/primary boot, boot loader wizard , retrieve deleted partitions <-- the retrieve option has saved my arse many times.

When i tried a early version of Win 7 back in august (XP on C, Vista on D win 7 on E and games on F). Win7 decided to delete my games drive during the setup! 120gigs wiped. :( Paragon got it back thou and it was bye bye Win7 after a week.

edit: If anyone cares.. make sure Paragon manager 10 is the server edition comes with far better tools

Other then it is the last OS installed that's bootloader is used. That is why you have to fix the boot partition if you do the install in reverse. Also you want to use the most recent bootloader as the older versions may not be compatible with the newer OS.

As far as I know the xp boot loader does not handle vista or win7, you need to use the vista/win7 bootloader for it to work, also you need to copy the boot.ini file from the xp install to the vista folder.

Anyhow here is some info on how to manualy edit the vista bootloader using bcdedit (comes with vista). http://www.flexbeta.net/forums/index.php?showtopic=8373


longham if you like I can try to walk you through editing it manually if we can't get easybcd to work. But I will need to know exactly how your set up, meaning how many drives, on which partitions/drives/directories are the os's installed, what you have tried to do, which bootloader is running and which os is working and not working.