Dual boot : W7 and Win XP

I had Windows XP on my Pc.
In a free partition I installed Win 7 and normally I should get a boot menu,
to choose between XP and 7...
Nope, no boot menu. Windows 7 works fine but how can I start Windows XP?
It's still on the harddisk (I can see that W XP partition in Explorer).

did you press F8 during boot?
--

(swap a mouse for a house to email)
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing. - Albert
Einstein


"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
I had Windows XP on my Pc.
In a free partition I installed Win 7 and normally I should get a boot
menu, to choose between XP and 7...
Nope, no boot menu. Windows 7 works fine but how can I start Windows XP?
It's still on the harddisk (I can see that W XP partition in Explorer).

"housetrained" schreef in bericht
...
did you press F8 during boot?
--

(swap a mouse for a house to email)
Sometimes one pays most for the things one gets for nothing. - Albert
Einstein


"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
I had Windows XP on my Pc.
In a free partition I installed Win 7 and normally I should get a boot
menu, to choose between XP and 7...
Nope, no boot menu. Windows 7 works fine but how can I start Windows XP?
It's still on the harddisk (I can see that W XP partition in Explorer).

No, should I?
As far as I know, a boot menu should appear automaticaly. Am I wrong?
Isn't F8 for safe mode (and other options...) ?

Hi, Carpe.

You left out a few critical facts. :(

Like, HOW did you install Win7? WHERE did you install it? Was it a Clean
Install? Or were you updating from WinXP?

Most importantly, where was WinXP while Win7 was being installed? Was it on
a disk that was disconnected or a partition that was hidden during the Win7
install? If Win7 Setup detects the existence of WinXP, it automatically
creates the dual-boot menu. But if WinXP is offline at the time, then Setup
cannot know about it and won't make any provision for it.

You haven't even told us how many HDDs you have, how they are partitioned,
or anything else about your system except that "I had Windows XP on my Pc."

There are clues in your post but they are not specific enough for us to have
any confidence in our guesses. :(

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
I had Windows XP on my Pc.
In a free partition I installed Win 7 and normally I should get a boot
menu, to choose between XP and 7...
Nope, no boot menu. Windows 7 works fine but how can I start Windows XP?
It's still on the harddisk (I can see that W XP partition in Explorer).

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
I had Windows XP on my Pc.
In a free partition I installed Win 7 and normally I should get a
boot menu, to choose between XP and 7...
Nope, no boot menu. Windows 7 works fine but how can I start Windows
XP?
It's still on the harddisk (I can see that W XP partition in
Explorer).

No, should I?
As far as I know, a boot menu should appear automaticaly. Am I wrong?
Isn't F8 for safe mode (and other options...) ?

Maybe it does, but he is not looking at the screen all the time during
bootup and by the time he does, it timed out and booted into Win7. It
happened to me, too, at first.

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
I had Windows XP on my Pc.
In a free partition I installed Win 7 and normally I should get a boot
menu, to choose between XP and 7...
Nope, no boot menu. Windows 7 works fine but how can I start Windows XP?
It's still on the harddisk (I can see that W XP partition in Explorer).

I had the same problem. Found a solution with a free progggie called
EasyBCD. I ran it within Win7. Works great. Google it.

Boot.ini, NTLDR, and ntdetect.com need to be on the "system partition"
(probably your "C:\" drive, even if it is 7. Copy two of the files from your
visible XP systemroot or the xp cd. boot.ini you can make with notepad. If
disk manager shows a 100MB partition marked as a system drive it needs to
have a drive letter assigned and boot manager needs to be pointed to it
either using bcdedit in 7 or third-party BCD editing software. Boot.ini
needs to indicate the disk (rdisk) 0 or 1 and the partition that contains
XP. Boot manager needs to be pointed to to the "system partition" which it
probably already is if you are currently logged on using 7.



__________ Information from ESET Smart Security, version of virus signature database 4623 (20091119) __________

The message was checked by ESET Smart Security.

http://www.eset.com

"Dabbler" schreef in bericht
...
"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
I had Windows XP on my Pc.
In a free partition I installed Win 7 and normally I should get a boot
menu, to choose between XP and 7...
Nope, no boot menu. Windows 7 works fine but how can I start Windows
XP?
It's still on the harddisk (I can see that W XP partition in Explorer).

No, should I?
As far as I know, a boot menu should appear automaticaly. Am I wrong?
Isn't F8 for safe mode (and other options...) ?

Maybe it does, but he is not looking at the screen all the time during
bootup and by the time he does, it timed out and booted into Win7. It
happened to me, too, at first.
Yes, I was looking... no menu...

"R. C. White" schreef in bericht
...
Hi, Carpe.

You left out a few critical facts. :(

Like, HOW did you install Win7? WHERE did you install it? Was it a Clean
Install? Or were you updating from WinXP?

Most importantly, where was WinXP while Win7 was being installed? Was it
on a disk that was disconnected or a partition that was hidden during the
Win7 install? If Win7 Setup detects the existence of WinXP, it
automatically creates the dual-boot menu. But if WinXP is offline at the
time, then Setup cannot know about it and won't make any provision for it.

You haven't even told us how many HDDs you have, how they are partitioned,
or anything else about your system except that "I had Windows XP on my
Pc."

There are clues in your post but they are not specific enough for us to
have any confidence in our guesses. :(


One harddisk, originally with 2 partitions : one with WinXP and one with
data.
I made the XP partition smaller and installed W7 in the unallocated space.
So W7 had to detect XP, but didn't...
So I installed EasyBCD and added an item (Win XP).
Now I get a boot menu but when I choose Windows XP the PC restarts...
Think I did something wrong in EasyBCD, but do not find what...
In W7 I can see the WinXP partition and it has a drive letter...

"Ken Swenson" schreef in bericht
news:9OmdnYNOyO3USJjWnZ2dnUVZ_gednZ2d@cablespeedmi .com...

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
I had Windows XP on my Pc.
In a free partition I installed Win 7 and normally I should get a boot
menu, to choose between XP and 7...
Nope, no boot menu. Windows 7 works fine but how can I start Windows XP?
It's still on the harddisk (I can see that W XP partition in Explorer).

I had the same problem. Found a solution with a free progggie called
EasyBCD. I ran it within Win7. Works great. Google it.
I installed EasyBCD and added an item (Win XP).
Now I get a boot menu but when I choose Windows XP the PC restarts...
Think I did something wrong in EasyBCD, but do not find what...

Hi, Carpe.

Thanks for those details. But you ignored some of my questions.

HOW did you "install W7 in the unallocated space"? Did you (1) boot from
the Win7 DVD? Or did you (2) boot into WinXP, then insert the Win7 DVD and
run Setup from there? Did you (3) tell Setup to "clean install"? Or did
you (4) tell it to "upgrade" from Win7? Did you use an OEM DVD? Or a "full
retail"? Or an "upgrade" disk?

And, while it shouldn't matter in this case, it might: Are either WinXP or
Win7 the 64-bit versions? Are they Home Basic or Ultimate or somewhere in
between?

You see, no matter how many or how few Windows installations you have or
which Windows versions they are, no matter how many or how few hard drives
and partitions you have, unless you change something in the BIOS, the
startup process ALWAYS starts in the System Partition; that is the Active
(bootable - usually BUT NOT ALWAYS - the first partition) on the first HDD.
The Root of this partition must hold the startup files for BOTH the XP-style
Windows (WinNT4/2K/XP - these files are NTLDR, NTDETECT.COM and Boot.ini)
and the Vista/Win7-style Windows (bootmgr and the \Boot folder). When Win7
Setup runs, it detects the existence of WinXP and makes the appropriate
entries in whichever partition is the System Partition at the time Setup
runs. These startup files, usually in C:\Boot, are what EasyBCD changes
when you use it.

So that brings us to another question:
I made the XP partition smaller and installed W7 in the unallocated space.

HOW did you shrink the WinXP partition? Did you use Disk Management? Or a
third-party tool?

Disk Management can only shrink a partition from the back end (the right
end, when looking at DM's Graphical Display). That way, the first partition
would have remained the System Partition - and WinXP's Boot Volume. But if
you used a utility that shrank the WinXP from the front of the disk, then
the new partition would have become the first partition on that HDD. Win7
Setup might have seen that as the System Partition and might have written
its system files there. And if the WinXP partition was not visible at the
time, Setup would not have known that WinXP was installed. It's also
possible that Setup updated the files on your second partition (where WinXP
still lives?), but the system is now booting from the first partition, which
does not have the updated files. This is not the typical situation, which
is why additional details are needed.

But I'm doing a lot of guessing here without enough facts to let me know if
my guesses are anywhere close to correct. And all these still-unanswered
questions were in my first post:
Like, HOW did you install Win7? WHERE did you install it? Was it a
Clean Install? Or were you updating from WinXP?

Could you please be as detailed with the actual facts as I've been with my
guesses?

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...

"R. C. White" schreef in bericht
...
Hi, Carpe.

You left out a few critical facts. :(

Like, HOW did you install Win7? WHERE did you install it? Was it a
Clean Install? Or were you updating from WinXP?

Most importantly, where was WinXP while Win7 was being installed? Was it
on a disk that was disconnected or a partition that was hidden during the
Win7 install? If Win7 Setup detects the existence of WinXP, it
automatically creates the dual-boot menu. But if WinXP is offline at the
time, then Setup cannot know about it and won't make any provision for
it.

You haven't even told us how many HDDs you have, how they are
partitioned, or anything else about your system except that "I had
Windows XP on my Pc."

There are clues in your post but they are not specific enough for us to
have any confidence in our guesses. :(


One harddisk, originally with 2 partitions : one with WinXP and one with
data.
I made the XP partition smaller and installed W7 in the unallocated space.
So W7 had to detect XP, but didn't...
So I installed EasyBCD and added an item (Win XP).
Now I get a boot menu but when I choose Windows XP the PC restarts...
Think I did something wrong in EasyBCD, but do not find what...
In W7 I can see the WinXP partition and it has a drive letter...

Hi, Luc.

Yes, I got your email. But I will reply only to posts here in the
newsgroup. That's what newsgroups are for, so that we ALL can learn from
each other. In email, only two parties can participate and benefit; in a
newsgroup, we call can teach and learn. If I give you wrong or incomplete
advice here, there are plenty of others who can correct or complete it; if I
give you bad advice in email, you're just stuck with it.

In the email, you provided a few additional tidbits of information:

"I booted from the DVD. No upgrade, so the XP partition remained intact for
100%."

OK. that's something that we didn't know. When Win7 is installed by booting
from the DVD, it automatically assigns the letter C: to its own Boot Volume.
It also, in some circumstances which haven't yet happened to me, creates a
small new partition (with NO "drive" letter assigned) for its own System
Partition; it may have done so in your situation.

"XP 32 bit Professional
"W7 32 bit Ultimate."

OK. Probably doesn't matter, as I said, but it's one less thing to wonder
about.

HOW did you shrink the WinXP partition? Did you use Disk Management? Or
a third-party tool?

"Acronis Disk Director. Before W7 was installed, of course ;-))"

OK. But you still didn't say if you put your Win7 partition before or after
your WinXP partition.

Have you ever run Disk Management? Just click Start, type "diskmgmt.msc"
and press Enter - and furnish the Administrator password. It may take a
minute or two to populate the screen. Maximize the window so that you are
not working through a keyhole, and widen the Status column in the Volume
Listing at the top so that you can see all the information for every volume.
Note especially which volume(s) has the System and Boot labels. Read KB
article 314470 (Definitions for system volume and boot volume;
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/) for the meaning of these
terms; they are backwards from most users' expectations.

In the Graphical View at the bottom of the Disk Management window, note the
physical layout of the partitions on your HDD, and note the drive letters
assigned to each. (When you reboot to WinXP and run Disk Management, your
drive letters probably will be different. That's why I always assign a name
to each partition; that will get written to the hard drive and will be the
same no matter which OS is running.)

After all this, Luc, I still can't answer your original question. We have
more information now, but it has been dragged out in bits and pieces and
there still seem to be pieces missing . Like, which are your System and
Boot volumes when Win7 is running? Is the System Volume the same when WinXP
is running? Maybe if I keep asking questions long enough we'll get all the
facts we need. But it might be best to start over with a new thread. Lay
out all these details in the first post and clearly ask your question again.
If someone doesn't provide a better answer first, I'll try again.

Good luck!

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...

"R. C. White" schreef in bericht
...
Hi, Carpe.

You left out a few critical facts. :(

Like, HOW did you install Win7? WHERE did you install it? Was it a
Clean Install? Or were you updating from WinXP?

Most importantly, where was WinXP while Win7 was being installed? Was it
on a disk that was disconnected or a partition that was hidden during the
Win7 install? If Win7 Setup detects the existence of WinXP, it
automatically creates the dual-boot menu. But if WinXP is offline at the
time, then Setup cannot know about it and won't make any provision for
it.

You haven't even told us how many HDDs you have, how they are
partitioned, or anything else about your system except that "I had
Windows XP on my Pc."

There are clues in your post but they are not specific enough for us to
have any confidence in our guesses. :(


One harddisk, originally with 2 partitions : one with WinXP and one with
data.
I made the XP partition smaller and installed W7 in the unallocated space.
So W7 had to detect XP, but didn't...
So I installed EasyBCD and added an item (Win XP).
Now I get a boot menu but when I choose Windows XP the PC restarts...
Think I did something wrong in EasyBCD, but do not find what...
In W7 I can see the WinXP partition and it has a drive letter...

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...

"Ken Swenson" schreef in bericht
news:9OmdnYNOyO3USJjWnZ2dnUVZ_gednZ2d@cablespeedmi .com...

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
I had Windows XP on my Pc.
In a free partition I installed Win 7 and normally I should get a boot
menu, to choose between XP and 7...
Nope, no boot menu. Windows 7 works fine but how can I start Windows XP?
It's still on the harddisk (I can see that W XP partition in Explorer).

I had the same problem. Found a solution with a free progggie called
EasyBCD. I ran it within Win7. Works great. Google it.
I installed EasyBCD and added an item (Win XP).
Now I get a boot menu but when I choose Windows XP the PC restarts...
Think I did something wrong in EasyBCD, but do not find what...

Did you run EasyBCD from within Win 7?

"R. C. White" schreef in bericht
ecom...
Hi, Luc.

Yes, I got your email. But I will reply only to posts here in the
newsgroup. That's what newsgroups are for, .....

Sorry, that was a mistake!!!


In the email, you provided a few additional tidbits of information:

"I booted from the DVD. No upgrade, so the XP partition remained intact
for
100%."

OK. that's something that we didn't know. When Win7 is installed by
booting from the DVD, it automatically assigns the letter C: to its own
Boot Volume. It also, in some circumstances which haven't yet happened to
me, creates a small new partition (with NO "drive" letter assigned) for
its own System Partition; it may have done so in your situation.

It did indeed create an additional 100 Mb partition.


HOW did you shrink the WinXP partition? Did you use Disk Management? Or
a third-party tool?

"Acronis Disk Director. Before W7 was installed, of course ;-))"

OK. But you still didn't say if you put your Win7 partition before or
after your WinXP partition.


Win7 partition is after the XP partition.

Have you ever run Disk Management? Just click Start, type "diskmgmt.msc"
and press Enter - and furnish the Administrator password. It may take a
minute or two to populate the screen. Maximize the window so that you are
not working through a keyhole, and widen the Status column in the Volume
Listing at the top so that you can see all the information for every
volume. Note especially which volume(s) has the System and Boot labels.
Read KB article 314470 (Definitions for system volume and boot volume;
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/) for the meaning of these
terms; they are backwards from most users' expectations.

In the Graphical View at the bottom of the Disk Management window, note
the physical layout of the partitions on your HDD, and note the drive
letters assigned to each. (When you reboot to WinXP and run Disk
Management, your drive letters probably will be different. That's why I
always assign a name to each partition; that will get written to the hard
drive and will be the same no matter which OS is running.)

After all this, Luc, I still can't answer your original question. We have
more information now, but it has been dragged out in bits and pieces and
there still seem to be pieces missing . Like, which are your System and
Boot volumes when Win7 is running? Is the System Volume the same when
WinXP is running? Maybe if I keep asking questions long enough we'll get
all the facts we need. But it might be best to start over with a new
thread. Lay out all these details in the first post and clearly ask your
question again. If someone doesn't provide a better answer first, I'll try
again.

Good luck!


Thanks.
Finally, I got everything working :
First, I installed EasyBCD in Win7 (because I couldn't start XP).
I could add an item (XP) and got a boot menu, but when I choose XP the PC
restarts... Strange...
Then I restored the MBR of XP. So I could boot XP, but then I couldn't reach
W7 anymore...
Then I installed EasyBCD in XP as well, and after some "trial and error" I
finally managed to get a boot menu that works fine.

I don't know what, when installing W7, went wrong, and I probably never will
know.
Of course, to find out, I could delete W7 and start all over again, but I
think I leave everything as it is.

Eveybody : thanks!!!



RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...

"R. C. White" schreef in bericht
...
Hi, Carpe.

You left out a few critical facts. :(

Like, HOW did you install Win7? WHERE did you install it? Was it a
Clean Install? Or were you updating from WinXP?

Most importantly, where was WinXP while Win7 was being installed? Was
it on a disk that was disconnected or a partition that was hidden during
the Win7 install? If Win7 Setup detects the existence of WinXP, it
automatically creates the dual-boot menu. But if WinXP is offline at
the time, then Setup cannot know about it and won't make any provision
for it.

You haven't even told us how many HDDs you have, how they are
partitioned, or anything else about your system except that "I had
Windows XP on my Pc."

There are clues in your post but they are not specific enough for us to
have any confidence in our guesses. :(


One harddisk, originally with 2 partitions : one with WinXP and one with
data.
I made the XP partition smaller and installed W7 in the unallocated
space.
So W7 had to detect XP, but didn't...
So I installed EasyBCD and added an item (Win XP).
Now I get a boot menu but when I choose Windows XP the PC restarts...
Think I did something wrong in EasyBCD, but do not find what...
In W7 I can see the WinXP partition and it has a drive letter...

Hi, Luc.

Great! Congratulations! And Thanks for the feedback. ;)

RC
--
R. C. White, CPA
San Marcos, TX

Microsoft Windows MVP
Windows Live Mail 2009 (14.0.8089.0726) in Win7 Ultimate x64

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...
"R. C. White" schreef in bericht
ecom...
Hi, Luc.

Yes, I got your email. But I will reply only to posts here in the
newsgroup. That's what newsgroups are for, .....

Sorry, that was a mistake!!!


In the email, you provided a few additional tidbits of information:

"I booted from the DVD. No upgrade, so the XP partition remained intact
for
100%."

OK. that's something that we didn't know. When Win7 is installed by
booting from the DVD, it automatically assigns the letter C: to its own
Boot Volume. It also, in some circumstances which haven't yet happened to
me, creates a small new partition (with NO "drive" letter assigned) for
its own System Partition; it may have done so in your situation.

It did indeed create an additional 100 Mb partition.


HOW did you shrink the WinXP partition? Did you use Disk Management?
Or a third-party tool?

"Acronis Disk Director. Before W7 was installed, of course ;-))"

OK. But you still didn't say if you put your Win7 partition before or
after your WinXP partition.


Win7 partition is after the XP partition.

Have you ever run Disk Management? Just click Start, type "diskmgmt.msc"
and press Enter - and furnish the Administrator password. It may take a
minute or two to populate the screen. Maximize the window so that you
are not working through a keyhole, and widen the Status column in the
Volume Listing at the top so that you can see all the information for
every volume. Note especially which volume(s) has the System and Boot
labels. Read KB article 314470 (Definitions for system volume and boot
volume; http://support.microsoft.com/kb/314470/EN-US/) for the meaning of
these terms; they are backwards from most users' expectations.

In the Graphical View at the bottom of the Disk Management window, note
the physical layout of the partitions on your HDD, and note the drive
letters assigned to each. (When you reboot to WinXP and run Disk
Management, your drive letters probably will be different. That's why I
always assign a name to each partition; that will get written to the hard
drive and will be the same no matter which OS is running.)

After all this, Luc, I still can't answer your original question. We
have more information now, but it has been dragged out in bits and pieces
and there still seem to be pieces missing . Like, which are your System
and Boot volumes when Win7 is running? Is the System Volume the same
when WinXP is running? Maybe if I keep asking questions long enough
we'll get all the facts we need. But it might be best to start over with
a new thread. Lay out all these details in the first post and clearly
ask your question again. If someone doesn't provide a better answer
first, I'll try again.

Good luck!


Thanks.
Finally, I got everything working :
First, I installed EasyBCD in Win7 (because I couldn't start XP).
I could add an item (XP) and got a boot menu, but when I choose XP the PC
restarts... Strange...
Then I restored the MBR of XP. So I could boot XP, but then I couldn't
reach W7 anymore...
Then I installed EasyBCD in XP as well, and after some "trial and error" I
finally managed to get a boot menu that works fine.

I don't know what, when installing W7, went wrong, and I probably never
will know.
Of course, to find out, I could delete W7 and start all over again, but I
think I leave everything as it is.

Eveybody : thanks!!!



RC

"Carpe Diem" wrote in message
...

"R. C. White" schreef in bericht
...
Hi, Carpe.

You left out a few critical facts. :(

Like, HOW did you install Win7? WHERE did you install it? Was it a
Clean Install? Or were you updating from WinXP?

Most importantly, where was WinXP while Win7 was being installed? Was
it on a disk that was disconnected or a partition that was hidden
during the Win7 install? If Win7 Setup detects the existence of WinXP,
it automatically creates the dual-boot menu. But if WinXP is offline
at the time, then Setup cannot know about it and won't make any
provision for it.

You haven't even told us how many HDDs you have, how they are
partitioned, or anything else about your system except that "I had
Windows XP on my Pc."

There are clues in your post but they are not specific enough for us to
have any confidence in our guesses. :(


One harddisk, originally with 2 partitions : one with WinXP and one with
data.
I made the XP partition smaller and installed W7 in the unallocated
space.
So W7 had to detect XP, but didn't...
So I installed EasyBCD and added an item (Win XP).
Now I get a boot menu but when I choose Windows XP the PC restarts...
Think I did something wrong in EasyBCD, but do not find what...
In W7 I can see the WinXP partition and it has a drive letter...