O/S Boot Problem (Vista)

Hey, i recently tried to follow the guide; http://www.howtogeek.com/howto.....-computer/

I have a Vista desktop computer from HP and have attemped to Dual Boot with XP as a secondary O/S as shown in the guide above. I got as far as installing XP onto the new partition (I made it 6GB in size) and it rebooting to continue the installation process... Now all it says is "Error loading operating system", all i can do is reboot the computer.

If i boot to the XP installation disk and it gets up to the screen that displays the different partitions it can install to, the partitions have changed, even though i haven't told them to, the sizes have changed and the names have changed. The partition i tried to install XP to has changed from E to I, but the size is the same, and XP has only taken up around half a GB so i presume it hasn't installed everything. I then deleted the XP partition and tried to boot again, though all it does is display a black screen with a blinking white underscore.

Is there anything i can do to fix this without formatting the whole hard disk? (I've tried installing XP again, same thing happens)

The main thing i'm worried about is having to format the whole hard disk as i really want to keep all the data.

 

Your link doesn't appear to work properly. Is this the guide that you followed?

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/install-windows-xp-on-your-pre-installed-windows-vista-computer/#comment

 

Sorry, and yes, it is.

 

hi i had this problem but i found after installing xp if i instared acronis suite 10 i think it was i reboot now i can select which partition to boot from its like a linux grub

 

Yea, but because i can't boot i can't install anything...

 

try a linux distro for now

 

If i installed it to the unpartitioned space, it wouldn't mess with the Vista partition any more than at the moment?

 

no it wont as long as you dont mess with your vista partition it will stay there

 

Ok, thanks, but before i try that, there's one other thing i could try, though i'm not sure if it would work. I've got another desktop that's running XP Pro, would it be possible to connect the HDD from the Vista PC as a secondary HDD and take the important data from it, then format it and start from scratch, (i've got the XP Pro installation disk and an OEM code for Vista Home Premium, so i could download an installation disk for that)? Just not sure if XP would recognise the new drive without making me format it (I can't just try because if i went down this route i'd need to buy an extra SATA power converter cable, no point in doing so and it not working)

 

im not 100% sure but i think it might work cos xp seems to be good at 'picking up drivers' and that
before you try that try setting up a network boot through the broken pc using a network cable

 

How would you go about setting that up? And i've got a wireless router so they're both on wireless, but i presume you'd need cables as it wouldn't recognise wireless networks without booting fully? I don't have any crossovers, so two different cables would have to go through the router? Sorry for all the questions

 

no problem bout the questions.you would need 1 network cable running through 1 pc to the other right switch on the non working pc go into bios set up select boot order the choose to boot from the lan
ill see if i can find an easy to follow guide for ya cos as i said i aint a pro but i no what im doing i hope lol

 

Cheers, and thanks for the help you've given so far ^.^

 

no problems allways happy too help lol i may onli be 15 but i no what to do XD

 

Haha, i'm 15 too, guess i'm just in too deep this time

 

lol i must have gone through like 50 vista reinstalls cos i was into the mac os x 86 project were mac booted on a normal pc then i give up with it XD

 

Well, i know how to re-install it and stuff, i'm just trying to work out why it won't install XP correctly, and why it altered all the partitions, never done it before. I, for one, blame everything on Vista

 

i too use vista but hate it it so unstable so why did microsoft release it its too unstable and constantly crashes i prefered xp but vista looks far better soo im sticking with vista for now till i get a mac

 

Well i use PCs for gaming as well, so XP is the best option for me, Vista makes games slower and Macs... well..there just aren't games for that

 

well im a musician so mac is for me