Odd Dual Boot Behavior XP + Win7


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I had XP on one partition that I split to make room for Windows 7. Rebooted, picked to boot from DVD (via ESC boot menu, not bios setting) and Windows 7 started to install fine. On first reboot though XP loaded up with no options to choose the OS.

I tried to boot from DVD again but it just restarts the installation again instead of continuing. To get it to continue I had to hit ESC to get my boot menu, pick my primary HD (same one with my XP partition). Then I get the option to choose Windows 7 or Older version of Windows (haven't tried this but presume it'll load XP).

So I can dual boot but if I don't manually pick my HD from my boot menu XP loads up without any prompts.

I plan to wipe my XP partition and reinstall Win7 anyways but want to figure out why my boot setup is so messed up. Any ideas?

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  • 3 months later...
I had XP on one partition that I split to make room for Windows 7. Rebooted, picked to boot from DVD (via ESC boot menu, not bios setting) and Windows 7 started to install fine. On first reboot though XP loaded up with no options to choose the OS.

I tried to boot from DVD again but it just restarts the installation again instead of continuing. To get it to continue I had to hit ESC to get my boot menu, pick my primary HD (same one with my XP partition). Then I get the option to choose Windows 7 or Older version of Windows (haven't tried this but presume it'll load XP).

So I can dual boot but if I don't manually pick my HD from my boot menu XP loads up without any prompts.

I plan to wipe my XP partition and reinstall Win7 anyways but want to figure out why my boot setup is so messed up. Any ideas?

Did anyone come up with a fix for this? I'm having the same problem.

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I had a similiar problem, I formated my XP partition -- I had XP Pro & Vista -- and installed Win7 to it...it killed my bootloader, so I lost the ability to boot into Vista until someone pointed me in the direction of EasyBCD:

http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

Which fixed the problem, I can now boot into either Vista or Win7.

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Here is my current Boot.ini that loads when my computer starts:

[boot loader]

timeout=30

default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS

[operating systems]

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(8)\WINDOWS="Windows 7" /NOEXECUTE=OPTIN /FASTDETECT /USEPMTIMER

I added the windows 7 entry myself and when I try to boot into it, I get just a black screen that doesn't load.

I still get the actual windows 7 boot screen when I manually select the hard drive to boot through the boot menu from my bios. How can I see the Windows 7 boot.ini? Maybe I can just copy it over to my boot.ini that actually loads with the pc.

Edit. I was reading that there is no windows 7 boot.ini. Another FYI, when I boot into XP and 7, they both show themselves as the C: drive, dunno if this is normal.

Edited by wwfmike
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This is really starting to confuse me.

I have 3 drives. (using the Win7 Computer Management)

My primary is a 600GB Sata drive which shows as Disk 2. I have Partition 1 as Windows XP and Partition 8 as Windows 7.

Then a 250GB which shows as Disk 1

Then a 300GB which shows as Disk 0

When I boot with Disk 2, it loads the boot.ini on partition 1 and loads Windows XP

When I boot with Disk 1, it loads the windows 7 boot loader.

Computer management from XP shows the XP drive as C: and the boot drive while the computer management from win7 shows the win7 drive as C: and the boot drive.

Im stumped.

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