I had previously been dual-booting Vista and XP on separate hard drives. I recently upgraded my Vid card and mobo, and ever since had been unable to boot either OS (had been given a message saying, "Error loading OS" while still in the BIOS). I re-installed Vista, but was reluctant to reinstall XP, because I was afraid of losing all of my Vista items. The BIOS still gave me the option of choosing which OS to load. The other day, I had finally worked up the courage to install XP, and the install went fine. But now, I am not given an option anymore of which OS to load. It jumps straight into XP, and Vista is now unaccessable. I can go through the explorer and access everything on the Vista Hard drive, but this makes no difference if I want to load any programs installed through vista (obviously). Any tips on getting my dual-booting back up? Even if I can't to get a boot choice through the BIOS, is there a way to boot my already-existing Vista through XP itself? PLEASE, I would really appreciate any help you guys can give. Its an ASUS mobo, A8N series, if it matters. Also, If I try to change the HDD priority through the BIOS, I get the "Error loading OS" message.
if new motherboard chipset is different from previous motherboard chipset then windows will barf unless you do a fresh install.
That's just the thing, though. BOTH OS's ARE fresh installs. I just don't understand why its not giving me the option to Boot either OS anymore. Is there anyway to boot my other OS install through XP?
We had this exact situation at work a while back. A customer wanted Vista and XP on the same HDD and wanted to dual boot it. Honest opinion just get another HDD and have one with XP and one with vista. Its ridiculous to figure out and it took us about 3 days. The guy ended up just have each installed on seperate HDDS because it wouldnt function right anyway. Hope that helps a bit.
They are on separate HDD's. I had been successfully dual-booting this way for over a year. I had to reinstall each OS, but after doing the XP install, it jumps straight to XP without giving me the option to choose which OS to boot. Quite frustrating, but thanks, though, sir. Anyway, is there a way to boot another OS within XP? Or a third party booter? I have no idea how any of this works, so ABSOLUTELY ANY input would be greatly appreciated.
Sorry to bother, but can you be a bit more specific on the thing? Terribly sorry, but I have absoltuely no experience on something like this. Where could I find such a thing? What would I need to install (or is it idiot proof)? Thanks for putting me in the right direction.
We had this exact situation at work a while back. A customer wanted Vista and XP on the same HDD and wanted to dual boot it. Honest opinion just get another HDD and have one with XP and one with vista. Its ridiculous to figure out and it took us about 3 days. The guy ended up just have each installed on seperate HDDS because it wouldnt function right anyway. i have 4 os in one harddrive because i partioned to 4 seperate logical drives linux ubuntu linux fedora xp vista and every thing is working fine
I think that part of the reason was he wanted Vista ultimate 64 bit version. There was something and i cant remember exactly what it was but vista was just currupting some xp file every time. dont really know how though.
You will need to use the program vistabootpro, you install it within windows xp, and from there rebuild your vista bootloader. directions http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/about88231.html vistabootpro download http://www.vistabootpro.org/
