Computer no longer multiboots

[Ken Springer]

I hope no one gets upset with the crossposting, so if you reply, please
reply/followup to all, not just the newsgroup you see this post in. Thanks.

I've lived "dangerously" for a long time and never used any back up
software. But I do things differently than most when it comes to
storage of my data, so I've never lost any data matters, or to any great
extent. Operating systems, well, that's another story! LOL

The computer was dual booting XP Pro and Vista Ultimate, with each OS in
it's own partition. XP was the first OS installed, with Vista installed
later.

I finally decided to test some backup software. Both XP Pro and Vista
Ultimate come with MS supplied software to do this. I wanted to
try/test these out before looking elsewhere.

I started with XP, which messed everything up. LOL I read in MS's
book, XP Inside and Out, that the XP system was flawed/bugged, and some
files you would expect to be included in a system image might not be
there. Had to try it anyway. <grin> Creating and restoring a system
image destroyed the dual boot capability. I no longer get the screen to
choose which OS will boot or allow for the OS to default to one or the
other. In my case, the default was XP, and the computer now boots into
XP only.

All of the Vista files appear to still be there.

As I understand the process, when Vista is installed as the 2nd OS,
Vista replaces XP's boot.ini file, or at least supersedes it.

I can simply reinstall Vista, I own a copy, but I just want to avoid the
time involved to install and update. Only two programs were installed
under Vista, and one of them was a utility that is also installed under
XP. The other was a very old copy of dBase, so I'm not out anything in
this regard.

What I'd like to know is, does anyone know of or have a relatively
simple yet easy way to restore the multiboot option without having to
take the time to reinstall Vista?

[MowGreen]

Post by Ken Springer
I hope no one gets upset with the crossposting, so if you reply, please
reply/followup to all, not just the newsgroup you see this post in.
Thanks.
I've lived "dangerously" for a long time and never used any back up
software. But I do things differently than most when it comes to
storage of my data, so I've never lost any data matters, or to any great
extent. Operating systems, well, that's another story! LOL
The computer was dual booting XP Pro and Vista Ultimate, with each OS in
it's own partition. XP was the first OS installed, with Vista installed
later.
I finally decided to test some backup software. Both XP Pro and Vista
Ultimate come with MS supplied software to do this. I wanted to
try/test these out before looking elsewhere.
I started with XP, which messed everything up. LOL I read in MS's
book, XP Inside and Out, that the XP system was flawed/bugged, and some
files you would expect to be included in a system image might not be
there. Had to try it anyway. <grin> Creating and restoring a system
image destroyed the dual boot capability. I no longer get the screen to
choose which OS will boot or allow for the OS to default to one or the
other. In my case, the default was XP, and the computer now boots into
XP only.
All of the Vista files appear to still be there.
As I understand the process, when Vista is installed as the 2nd OS,
Vista replaces XP's boot.ini file, or at least supersedes it.
I can simply reinstall Vista, I own a copy, but I just want to avoid the
time involved to install and update. Only two programs were installed
under Vista, and one of them was a utility that is also installed under
XP. The other was a very old copy of dBase, so I'm not out anything in
this regard.
What I'd like to know is, does anyone know of or have a relatively
simple yet easy way to restore the multiboot option without having to
take the time to reinstall Vista?

Repair/rebuild BCD by booting with the Vista DVD -
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391



MowGreen
================
*-343-* FDNY
Never Forgotten
================

[Ken Springer]

On 12/1/12 12:10 PM, MowGreen wrote:

<snip>

Post by MowGreen
Repair/rebuild BCD by booting with the Vista DVD -
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391

Well, that didn't work! That got Vista to boot, but no XP option. LOL

I had forgotten I'd installed a free (commercial/paid version available)
utility called Easy BCD in the Vista installation. I'd never
experimented with it, but took a look. I discovered I could add menu
items, so added XP, and I'm back in business. Everything seems to work
as before.

Now for the details of using the KB article...

I first tried Method 1. For some reason, when it searched for Windows
installations, it only found the Vista installation. There was no
mention of the XP installation. Also, the Vista installation is on D:\,
but the StartUp Repair said it was on F:\. WHAT?!?!?!

Not wanting to make a bad situation worse, I exited Method 1.

Method 2 was next. Step 7 says to type Bootrec /RebuildBcd and press
Enter. The routine said 0 Windows installations were found. On to the
bullets. The first instruction said the operation completed
successfully. The second operation, renaming the file, said the file
could not be found. Tried the rebuild command again, which is the next
step, still failed. Exited Method 2.

Method 3... After managing to type in all the commands correctly (LOL),
I now had the BCD boot screen, but no option for XP. Booted fine into
Vista, so at least I knew the Vista installation was sound.

Thought I'd experiment, tried Method 1 again. This time, I selected the
one Vista installation, even though it said F:\. It made some repair
unknown to me, as it at least changed the text in the BCD menu. If it
did anything else, I don't know what it is. Vista still booted.

On to trying Method 2 again. Still failed, but this time, I tried all
possible drive letters for renaming the files, plus left out the boot
directory part of the entry, all failed. Vista still booted.

Booted into Vista. Installed the current version of EasyBCD, and
started playing. Added XP, sorry I don't remember exactly I had to
input using the Add Entry menu, tested it. Had both XP and Vista in the
BCD boot menu, both worked perfectly from what I can tell, and I'm a
happy camper.

Using EasyBCD, I tweaked the BCD entries to my liking, and all is well
in computer land here.

I am curious as to why the Startup Repair didn't see the XP
installation. My thoughts are both the article and the Startup Repair
routine assumes a Vista install only. Multibooting possibilities aren't
considered. That doesn't explain the routine identifying the drive as
F:\ and not D:\.

One of the mysteries of Windows, I guess. <grin>

So thanks for the KB link. While it didn't solve the problem, it got me
into Vista, which got me to EasyBCD where I was able fix the missing XP
entry in the menu.

[Paul]

Post by Ken Springer
I hope no one gets upset with the crossposting, so if you reply, please
reply/followup to all, not just the newsgroup you see this post in.
Thanks.
I've lived "dangerously" for a long time and never used any back up
software. But I do things differently than most when it comes to
storage of my data, so I've never lost any data matters, or to any great
extent. Operating systems, well, that's another story! LOL
The computer was dual booting XP Pro and Vista Ultimate, with each OS in
it's own partition. XP was the first OS installed, with Vista installed
later.
I finally decided to test some backup software. Both XP Pro and Vista
Ultimate come with MS supplied software to do this. I wanted to
try/test these out before looking elsewhere.
I started with XP, which messed everything up. LOL I read in MS's
book, XP Inside and Out, that the XP system was flawed/bugged, and some
files you would expect to be included in a system image might not be
there. Had to try it anyway. <grin> Creating and restoring a system
image destroyed the dual boot capability. I no longer get the screen to
choose which OS will boot or allow for the OS to default to one or the
other. In my case, the default was XP, and the computer now boots into
XP only.
All of the Vista files appear to still be there.
As I understand the process, when Vista is installed as the 2nd OS,
Vista replaces XP's boot.ini file, or at least supersedes it.
I can simply reinstall Vista, I own a copy, but I just want to avoid the
time involved to install and update. Only two programs were installed
under Vista, and one of them was a utility that is also installed under
XP. The other was a very old copy of dBase, so I'm not out anything in
this regard.
What I'd like to know is, does anyone know of or have a relatively
simple yet easy way to restore the multiboot option without having to
take the time to reinstall Vista?

You've left out some details.

Dual booting could be done with a single disk, with the two OSes each
having a partition on that single disk.

Or, you could have two separate disk drives, and put one OS on each.
That's how I do it, for the simple reason either disk can be unplugged,
and "nobody gets hurt".

It probably doesn't make that much difference to the suggested repair
step, but is something to keep in mind. When using two separate disks,
you use the BIOS popup boot feature (press F8), to get a menu to
select which disk to boot.

When an OS boots, it loads a bit of code in the MBR (sector 0). In the
case of Windows, that code checks the boot flag on the primary partitions.
The MBR has a partition table with room for four primary partitions. The
boot flag should be set on one of them. That helps the MBR code figure out
which partition to load from. In the case of Linux, the Linux flavor of
boot code doesn't look at the boot flag, just to show that the method is
platform specific. The boot flag is there, but it isn't mandatory
that something check it.

The OSes use slightly different mechanisms. WinXP uses boot.ini. Vista
uses BCD. Each has information, a table of boot options. A descriptive
term for this, would be the "boot manager" that each OS has.

When you install the more modern OS second as you've done, that allows
the installer to do what it is supposed to do. It sees WinXP, makes note
of the details, and then when the "boot manager" info is built in Vista,
an entry for WinXP can be included. When there is more than one entry
in a boot manager, there is a need to display the options during startup,
which is when the boot manager is more apparent to the user.

So what Moe is suggesting to you, is to use the Vista DVD to rebuild
the BCD, just as the Vista installer did when you first installed Vista.
Only now you don't have the advantage of the Vista installer, and so
you'll be doing the steps manually.

Then, once the boot process has a Vista boot loader in the MBR, boot
flag marks a Vista related partition as active, the newly built BSD
should present the two OS options. As far as I know, the files on the
WinXP partition still matter, and even after selecting WinXP from
there, WinXP could still be damaged in such a way that it won't come up.

If you didn't have the Vista repair to work with, you might check
the equivalent of "fixmbr" (bootsect?), to have Vista code in the MBR,
"diskpart" to mark a particular partition as "active", Bootrec /RebuildBcd
to rebuild the BCD for Vista's boot manager. You might also need to
look at the WinXP stuff, if it's been damaged, but it probably
hasn't, as WinXP was careful to look out for itself when this
accident happened.

If you think about it, a "cold metal restore" by the WinXP backup software,
would assume (perhaps wrongly), that the MBR should be corrected, as
the disk could be completely empty when the restore is done. The restoration
software would have to be clever enough to see that Vista owns the
disk, Vista code is already in the MBR, and not mess that up.
Perhaps Vista backup software should "own" your system ? Using the
method you've chosen, could well require Vista repair after WinXP restore.

Paul

[Ken Springer]

Hi, Paul,

If you've read my reply to MowGreen, you know I'm up and running. But
will answer your questions anyway. :-)

On 12/1/12 1:02 PM, Paul wrote:

<snip>

Post by Paul
You've left out some details.
Dual booting could be done with a single disk, with the two OSes each
having a partition on that single disk.
Or, you could have two separate disk drives, and put one OS on each.
That's how I do it, for the simple reason either disk can be unplugged,
and "nobody gets hurt".

In my case, both OS's are on the primary drive. I use the secondary
drive for any data storage.

<snip>

Post by Paul
Then, once the boot process has a Vista boot loader in the MBR, boot
flag marks a Vista related partition as active, the newly built BSD
should present the two OS options. As far as I know, the files on the
WinXP partition still matter, and even after selecting WinXP from
there, WinXP could still be damaged in such a way that it won't come up.

As I noted to MowGreen, the XP option was not available. But the files
are apparently undamaged

Needless to say, I'm done experimenting with the built in backup and
restore program in XP Pro. I do have a file backup program installed in
XP, but it doesn't do system images. If I had know that when I bought
it, I probably would have skipped it. Now, I'll play with the backup
and restore options in Vista, see how things go.

Thanks for the information!