Never done Dual Booting - Advice needed please!

[computerman]

are you using 2 drives or one drive that is partitioned?

do you know how to change your drive letters? from memory, go to control panel and then into admin tools, from here go into "Disk Management" here you can change the drive letters, change the windows 7 drive back to f and then but your windows xp drive back to c and then restart.

[Haggisuk99]

Originally Posted by SwedishTom

Yes, I can still see my drive with Windows XP on, its now changed to D: drive though.

Cheers
Tom

Tom use this program in vista compatibility mode to change your boot options

Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies
instructions are here
How to dual-boot Vista with XP (with XP installed first) - step-by-step guide with screenshots

this guide is a step by step on how to install a dual boot with xp already installed I know its for vista but its practically the same procedures so just go over it so you can figure out what went wrong.
How to dual-boot Vista with XP (with XP installed first) - step-by-step guide with screenshots

[SwedishTom]

Originally Posted by computerman

are you using 2 drives or one drive that is partitioned?

I'm using two drives, the drive where I have my XP on is a dedicated OS drive (160GB large in Raid1 <-- Come to think about it, may this be the problem? Because when I view all my drives in Computer Management --> Disk Management, then I see two separate drives for my D: drive where I have my XP system on).

Here is a snapshoot of it: Disk 0 and Disk1 is where my XP system is on now, which in Xp showed as one drive if memory serves me right..


On the part I put my Windows 7 on is a partitioned part of one of my 500GB drives. Disk3 in the snapshoot.

Originally Posted by computerman

do you know how to change your drive letters? from memory, go to control panel and then into admin tools, from here go into "Disk Management" here you can change the drive letters, change the windows 7 drive back to f and then but your windows xp drive back to c and then restart.

Yes, I do know how to change the drive letters, but I think I wait until you read the above just incase!

Edit: Haggisuk99, I got the EasyBCD already, suggested from another forum, but not read that guide, will have a look at it now though!

Cheers
Tom

[SwedishTom]

Sorry for double posting.

Originally Posted by Haggisuk99

Tom use this program in vista compatibility mode to change your boot options

Download EasyBCD 1.7.2 - NeoSmart Technologies
instructions are here
How to dual-boot Vista with XP (with XP installed first) - step-by-step guide with screenshots

this guide is a step by step on how to install a dual boot with xp already installed I know its for vista but its practically the same procedures so just go over it so you can figure out what went wrong.
How to dual-boot Vista with XP (with XP installed first) - step-by-step guide with screenshots

I read through it and I'm still not sure what went wrong.. all I can see is that in the Change Settings, where if I understand it correctly, and if everything was working correctly, I would be able to see both Windows 7 and Windows XP in the Default OS drop menu, I can only see Windows 7.

Cheers
Tom

[Haggisuk99]

I think you may be right, when you loaded xp originally did you have to load up your raid drivers in order to get the drives recognised? If you did then that may be the reason. However if you were to install the vista version of your raid drivers into your windows 7 installation then you were to boot from your Windows 7 dvd.
then select a language, a time and currency, and a keyboard or input method, and then click next and on the next screen I think it is click Repair your computer. - (at the bottom of the Window )

Select Startup Repair and hopefully that then with the drivers loaded in Wins7 should fix the problem for you.
Try that and let me know how you get on

[SwedishTom]

Originally Posted by Haggisuk99

I think you may be right, when you loaded xp originally did you have to load up your raid drivers in order to get the drives recognised? If you did then that may be the reason.

Yes, I had to load the raid drivers before doing the set up of XP.

Originally Posted by Haggisuk99

However if you were to install the vista version of your raid drivers into your windows 7 installation then you were to boot from your Windows 7 dvd.
then select a language, a time and currency, and a keyboard or input method, and then click next and on the next screen I think it is click Repair your computer. - (at the bottom of the Window )

Select Startup Repair and hopefully that then with the drivers loaded in Wins7 should fix the problem for you.
Try that and let me know how you get on

How would I go about to do the above? Plus where can I get hold of the raid drivers for the Vista version?

Cheers
Tom

[Haggisuk99]

I would look on the website of your motherboard maker first to see if they have been released. then if not look at the chipset maker for your raid to see if they have released it. Do you know how to find out that info?

If not post your computer make and model here for us and I ll have quick nose for you

[SwedishTom]

Originally Posted by Haggisuk99

I would look on the website of your motherboard maker first to see if they have been released.

Have had a look at the motherboard site, but there is 3 different cersions of my MD so I will have to download it tomorrow, since I am getting some new parts which I will install then.

Originally Posted by Haggisuk99

then if not look at the chipset maker for your raid to see if they have released it. Do you know how to find out that info?

If not post your computer make and model here for us and I ll have quick nose for you

Don't know how to find out the chipset, unless you mean Intel since I am using a Intel C2D E6750 in my PC, the motherboard is you need it is Gigabyte GA_P35C_DS3R. Any other information you need?!?

Cheers
Tom

[computerman]

here you go, for 32bit vista:
GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver Download

and for 64bit vista:
GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver Download

[Haggisuk99]

Originally Posted by computerman

here you go, for 32bit vista:
GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver Download

and for 64bit vista:
GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver Download

they should work for you but in case they dont then look for the preinstall driver on this page, the other revisions of your moby are up the top by the title though i suspect that the drivers will probably remain the same
GIGABYTE - Support&Download - Motherboard - Driver - GA-P35-DS3R (rev. 1.0)

Your chipset is the intel p35 chipset for future reference and this tool may help you determine the revision of the moby without having to open it up

http://www.cpuid.com/pcwizard.php

try under the bios section as this number will either give the revision series or the number will give it away on the site

hope this helps

[Haggisuk99]

soz double post, Tom its under mainboard and then click mainboard again in the right window and the information for the revision of your moby comes up under general information
here is mine
General Information :
Manufacturer : ASUSTeK Computer INC. (Asus)
Product : P5Q DELUXE
Version : Rev 1.xx
Serial Number : MB-1234567890
Support MP : Yes, 2 CPU(s)
Version MPS : 1.4

[SwedishTom]

Thanks Haggisuk99, but by the looks of it I do have to open the PC up..

Manufacturer : Gigabyte Technology Co., Ltd. (Gigabyte)
Product : P35C-DS3R
Version : x.x
Serial Number : Unspecified
Support MP : Yes, 2 CPU(s)
Version MPS : 1.4

Cheers
Tom

[Haggisuk99]

Lol aint that just the way.

[SwedishTom]

OK, lets try again.. I have installed the Motherboard drivers now and all it help out with was merging my Raid disks so that are now sorted.. I also used EasyBCD and been able to get the dual boot screen but when I try to boot up XP I get an error..

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:

1. Insert your Windows Installation disc and restart the computer.
2. Choose your language settings and then click "Next".
3. Click "Repair your computer".

If you do not have this disc, contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for assistance.

File: \NTLDR

Status: 0xc00000f

Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.

Now, looking at my discs in the Disc Management window I can see that my system is registered on my L: drive for some reason?!? Shouldn't it be in my D: drive, where my XP system is located?



Also, could I move the highlighted files from my L: to D: drive or will that create problems?



I guess if it would create problems I could just copy my NTLDR (and maybe my NTDETECT and boot) file from my D: drive to the L: drive, but I would rather do it the other way around so that I can empty and reformat my L: drive. But I thought I ask before I try since I don't want to mess it all up!

Cheers
Tom

[Haggisuk99]

Hi Tom, I'm away atm so wont be back properly for a few weeks but your drive letters would be dependant on the system that you boot up in. ie so in xp your partition that your xp is stored in may be assigned the letter d drive for arguments sake and if you were to boot into win7 it may be assigned z drive for arguments sake. It is dependant on the system and doesnt mean it will have the same letter across the two systems.

Your booting problem is probably due to an incorrect partition setting in your boot menu, unfortunately as i have limited internet access i cannot google for the error as i would normally to be sure of that however as basically it is the windows 7 boot system that you are using now i can see that you do not have the win7 partition marked as an active partition which it should be to boot with this said I am not sure where your boot files are for that. You do have however other partitions marked as active which means it would look there first such as your movies disk and this generally might cause confusion as you would need to have your boot files on the active disk. I suggest before you move any files and potentially cause more problems you simply boot into the win7 disk and try a startup repair option and see if this solves things for you, however you may need to play with the partitions to make sure that they are not maked active unless they need to be. I suggest using sfdisk (special fdisk) to do this which can be found amongst this collection
Ultimate Boot CD - Overview

Sorry I cant help futher but I will try and get on again on the weekend.

However please please be very careful as removing the wrong active partition may stop your machine from booting altogether hence the boot cd in case things go wrong you can revert