[Theflux00]

I have a question that I've been looking for answer to without much success. I've seen plenty of posts on how to configure dual boot adding windows 7 to and XP load. but in my case I had windows 7 installed first, then installed XP.
Now it seems my systems boots straight into XP without giving me an option. my boot.ini in XP doesn't see any other OS's.
Now I imagine its because W7 uses bcdedit, not boot.ini. So my question is, how can i configure my system to see that there are two OS's installed and give an options as to what OS to boot??

XP doesnt see bcdedit. its not a valid command. and since W7 uses bcdedit, not boot.ini, i guess I'm stuck here.

[Elvandil]

Run startup repair on 7. Or you can try to use these from XP:

VistabootPro or EasyBCD

Since 7 is newer, both will need to boot through 7.

[Theflux00]

Got it! ok I'll try that right now and post results

[Theflux00]

OK, well now I have the dual boot screen, but when I choose XP, there's an error. /NTLDR
just to let you know I have w7 on C: , XP on E:

in easyBCD, I can go to manage bootloader - uninstall vista bootloader, and reboot and boot into xp, but theres no dual boot option, it just goes straight into XP.

if I run fixmbr or XP recovery conlose, will it override the bcdedit settings and then not allow me to boot up w7? thats what I'm unsure about now

any ideas as where to go from here?
thx!

[abkTech]

I have similar experiences using EasyBCD. Using bcdedit from Command Prompt is a little more complex but works perfectly.

For your case, you should try creating a new OS entry using EasyBCD for Windows XP/NT. It will just ask you for type of OS and drive. Ignore the message that pops after saving that setting. Try booting into both OS now.

[Theflux00]

OK, thanks I will give that a shot tonight.

Question - your talking about creating a new entry for xp, in windows 7 then? Pretty obvious just wanted to make sure.

Will get back with results. this has been driving me nuts, Thanks

[abkTech]

yup, its for XP.

[Theflux00]

well, I'm not sure what I did differently this time that I did not do the last time I spent a day trying to figure this out, but it worked perfectly the first time. My dual boot screen now boots to both OS's. Thanks for the help

[Elvandil]

Congratulations.