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Windows 7 & XP Boot Problem

OrbitzXT

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I have Windows 7 installed on an 80 GB SSD, and went to install XP on a separate 600 GB regular hard drive on the same computer. I thought I'd have the option of which OS I want to boot into, but my computer keeps automatically booting into XP. What can I do so that I can go back and forth as I please? Happy Easter by the way. :)
 
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In either XP or 7, Right click on "My Computer", go to "Advanced System Settings", tick the Advanced tab, then tick the settings button under "Startup and Recovery". In there will be a drop down box to select your Default O/S, along with checkboxes to enable to display your operating systems at boot for you to select.

Happy Easter to you too. :toast:
 
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You should have a boot selection option on startup given you have a relatively new system. The problem is it's booting off the first drive it finds an OS installed on.

You may find in BIOS another option for boot seek sequence.
 

afw

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AFAIK you cant install XP after 7 and get dual-boot ... the other way around is possible though (installing 7 after XP) ... not sure though ... :(
 
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AFAIK you cant install XP over 7 and get dual-boot ... the other way around is possible though (installing 7 after XP) ... not sure though ... :(

Sure you can. Not on the same HDD, though there may be a partition software out there that might do it. What I did was have all my other HDD's disconnected and only had the drive connected that I wanted to install XP to. Once XP is installed, plug the drives back in, set the bios to boot up from the Win 7 drive, then see my previous post. :)
 
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OrbitzXT

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In either XP or 7, Right click on "My Computer", go to "Advanced System Settings", tick the Advanced tab, then tick the settings button under "Startup and Recovery". In there will be a drop down box to select your Default O/S, along with checkboxes to enable to display your operating systems at boot for you to select.

Happy Easter to you too. :toast:

I checked that and it only lists the Windows XP 64 Bit OS I just installed. I recall having had this problem awhile back with Vista and XP. When I installed XP second after Vista it messed up the boot loader. There was a fix, I just don't remember what it was and how to do it.
 
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OrbitzXT

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I did as that said, and was able to get back into Windows 7, but I did not have the option of going into XP. Response two on that page deals with that and says...

The windows 7 repair will fix the Windows 7 boot issue but you may have to use bcdedit to manually add back in the {ntldr} entry that makes windows xp/nt function.

here is an excerpt from:http://www.kombitz.com/2009/01/13/how-to-add-windows-xp-to-windows-7-boot-manager/

you would do this in Windows 7 after running through the steps outlined by sabertooth.

1.Open an elevated command prompt.
2.Type the following to create a boot loader for Windows XP.
bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d "Windows XP"
3.Type the following to set the device to where Windows XP is installed. I used D: in this example. Replace it with the drive letter of your XP installation.
bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=D:
4.Type the following to set the path.
bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr
5.Type the following to add this boot loader to the boot up screen.
bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} /addlast
6.Reboot the computer.

I did all that, upon rebooting Windows XP was listed as an option but selecting it doesn't work. I get a message saying something is missing or corrupt. I'm confused what drive letter I was supposed to use during the quoted method of adding XP support. While in Windows, the drive with XP is labeled as E:, but if I go into Windows setup it says the drive with XP is called C:. I had put E:, so perhaps it was supposed to be C...but while in Windows 7, the Windows 7 drive is called C:.

My current situation is that XP wouldn't work at all, but 7 would. I decided to reinstall XP again to be in the same situation as before. I'm unsure how to get them both working.
 
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I did as that said, and was able to get back into Windows 7, but I did not have the option of going into XP. Response two on that page deals with that and says...



I did all that, upon rebooting Windows XP was listed as an option but selecting it doesn't work. I get a message saying something is missing or corrupt. I'm confused what drive letter I was supposed to use during the quoted method of adding XP support. While in Windows, the drive with XP is labeled as E:, but if I go into Windows setup it says the drive with XP is called C:. I had put E:, so perhaps it was supposed to be C...but while in Windows 7, the Windows 7 drive is called C:.

My current situation is that XP wouldn't work at all, but 7 would. I decided to reinstall XP again to be in the same situation as before. I'm unsure how to get them both working.

But didn't you say you have the OS's on two different pysical drives?

Hard to tell if you are trying a soft dual-boot, or just trying to pick the drive you want to boot from...

If you physically unplug the drive with Win 7 and boot, does that get you into XP?

If I read this right, it's all about boot priority settings in your BIOS
 
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