vista tries to boot into xp instead

[Night Hawk]

I'm in the strongest impression that Acer never clobbered everything off of either of those drives and left XP 64 still on to be seeing that. Browsing the drive or two in now while booted from a live Linux cd like ubuntu would show if the users folder or simply the DocumentsandSettings folder is seen on the drive.

If push comes to shove you may have to use another Vista dvd to see Vista on after wiping whatever they put on. They may have setup a dual boot on you that certainly didn't come out right. If you can browse the drive and post a screen for the boot files and folders seen that will show just what the present environment looks like and go from there.

If Vista was the only OS on the drive(s) you would have been booted in Vista now!

 

[kangarulzx]

\ If you can browse the drive and post a screen for the boot files and folders seen that will show just what the present environment looks like and go from there.

Hello Night Hawk, sorry i dont really understand what you mean exactly by browsing the boot files, ill post some pictures, tell me if im doing it wrong thanks a bunch.

The Boot.ini is inside my Games C: Drive

This Partition.txt is inside my Vista D: Drive

Inside my XP drive

Inside Vista Drive

and inside my Games Drive, ive placed Ntldr + NTDETECT.com inside my Games Drive so i can boot into XP, since it only recognise the C: drive as main

 

[Night Hawk]

You have XP boot files placed by the Windows installer or by yourself on C while the Vista boot files are found on D and you are wondering why Vista won't boot?

The mbr entries on the C drive are pointing to the XP primary F to see that version load. The bios sees that drive as the default boot drive without any Vista boot information present.

Why the screenshots of both drives? That shows where the boot files are located for each version of Windows as well as how you have things setup.

Repair of the Vista boot loader isn't the problem while the boot order in the bios is since the drive XP is on is set as default. The way to see if Vista will load would be pressing the F1 key or other F key assigned for the boot device menu at post and select the drive Vista is on to see if that is bootable and Vista will load by the sound of things there.

If Vista loads right up when that drive is selected from the list then you know where the problem is. With both an ide hard drive and a sata drive present the ide will be seen as the default automatically.

Once you change the order in the bios seeing the sata drive set as the default you can edit the Vista BCD file as well as copy XP boot files over to see XP added into the Vista boot loader as an option at startup. The first thing now however is selecting the Vista drive from the boot menu to see if Vista will load on it's own being on a separate drive.

 

[kangarulzx]

thanks for the replies Night Hawk, ummm sorry i really couldnt understand on what i should do from now on, english is my 3rd language and i wish you could simplify and help guide me through the process you stated

thanks

 

[SIW2]

Hi,

Night Hawk is saying that normally when using Windows boot management, the Vista bootmgr and XP ntldr & boot.ini would be on the same partition.

This would be the System partition, i.e. marked as Active.

It would help if you could post a screenshot of Disk Management.

To get to Disk Management, Rt click Computer>Manage (wait a couple of secs) -in the new window that opens click Disk Management - (wait a couple of secs)

 

[Night Hawk]

Your mention of copying XP boot files to C shows how you see XP startup with the C ide drive being set as the boot drive for the system. Vista was installed on the sata drive by itself without the boot loader or other boot files found on C.

The settings in the boot section of the bios setup determine which drive is set as the boot device. The user manual for the board if you have that will explain how to change bios settings and should show how to change the default boot to the sata drive.

Once you set the sata as the boot drive XP won't startup while Vista should if the boot information and files are intact there. But you can edit the Vista boot loader to see XP added into that for a dual boot or use the F1 boot menu to select the drive XP is on at post to see XP load.

To setup a working dual boot you would first copy XP's boot files over to the root of the Vista drive and then proceed to edit the Vista BCD file as well as the copy of the XP boot.ini file to point to the second F partition on the ide drive. But first you want to see if Vista will run by either pressing the F key option if seen at post or change the default boot drive to the sata.

 

[kangarulzx]

Alright thanks for the reply here is a picture of my Disk management

 

[Night Hawk]

XP(HD0,3)partition is still shown on the same drive as Vista(HD0,2) there. The first partition lacks a drive letter being the recovery partition most likely. The last partition seen, HD0,4, also seems to be reserved there as well.

When Acer redid the Vista installation they weren't able to properly reconfigure the dual boot with XP you had set up originally. But the screen there shows both versions installed on the same drive not on separate hard drives.

The boot files for Vista may be on a separate drive from where the XP boot information is located explaining why you are seeing one version boot but not the other. Now you will likely need to unplug the C drive after copying the XP boot files to the Vista partition plus see the Vista boot information rewritten.

With the C set as default and only seeing the XP boot files present without traces of Vista there XP will load up if the mbr entries are also present. You would need to see the HD0 drive shown there made the default boot device where you repair install XP later if needed but see the Vista BCD rebuilt as well as seeing new mbr information.

 

[kangarulzx]

Now you will likely need to unplug the C drive after copying the XP boot files to the Vista partition plus see the Vista boot information rewritten.

this is the part where im really not sure if im doing it correctly.

Do i go into my C:/ drive and copy that invisible boot folder + ntldr + NTDETECT.COM files and overwrites them with the boot folder in my vista drive?

and how do i unplug C drive?, if i unpluged it, wouldnt i not be able to sign into XP os anymore? and write replies on this forum

 

[Night Hawk]

With both installations on one drive you would be making that drive alone bootable. By copying the XP boot files to the root of the Vista primary there you would add XP into the Vista boot loader once you have that in working order again. You first need to see the Vista boot files and mbr information corrected however maybe requiring a full recovery or use of the repair install option outlined at http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/88236-repair-install-vista.html

The MS page for using the command prompt method is seen at How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows Vista

 

[kangarulzx]

sorry Night Hawk im really really confused because of my bad english, i just really couldnt follow through ur steps

thanks for ur help!!! thank you, ill take SIW2's advice on deleteing all of my os on computer and start fresh from start

 

[Night Hawk]

If that 13bg of drive space is the recovery partition and you created a set of recovery disks from that then you shouldn't see any problem dumping anything on the drive you want Vista running again. If sata simply make you unplug the ide drive first since the Windows installer will tend to place boot files and mbr information there.

You'll have to decide now if you still want to see a dual boot of Vista with XP or run Vista by itself. I think by now you are looking at a single OS system anyways to avoid any further problems.