Need Some Help

[Miles]

Hi Guys,

Here's my dilema...I'm trying to set up Windows XP and Vista 64 on two separate drives, but not the usual dual boot thing which is relatively easy. I want each of the drives to be avaialable to boot from the BIOS when I hit F8 which works on all ASUS boards.

Over the weekend I did the following:

1. Set XP up on the D Drive then unplugged it
2. Set Vista up on the C drive
3. Tried the F8 option and was told that NTLDR was corrupt or missing on XP
4. Went into repair disk and replaced the NTLDR and associated files on XP
5. Still didn't work

At that time I had a major review to finish so I didn't have time to continue messing with it. As it stands now Vista is working perfectly on the C drive and I have reformatted the D drive. Any advice? TIA

[tyle6]

its the SATA boot order... you need to have that boot loader for vista on the first boot drive with XP on it. I had this exact issue actually a few month back with XP and vista 64. vistas bootloader will handle loading XP and vista off the second drive without any boot sector on it.

Anyways i believe all you need to do is make sure the drive with the vista bootsector is the primary master in BIOS as SATA is not pinned.
If you want any more details on the process i used just ask.

[Scott]

Well you are doing it different than I do. I do not use the F8. I go into the BIOS and change the boot drive and save from there when I want to work on another OS.

I don't know how the F8 differs from what I do.

[tyle6]

I think it allows you to access the start-up options wich would include the options that the vista boot loader would aswell if it was set-up correctly;-)
The load older operating systems option?
or are you using a some sort of propietory asus hardware level boot loader?

[Miles]

No, F8 simply brings up a list of all drives on the system and gives you the option of which one to boot from. It's been a feature on ASUS boards for a long time. I think other manufacturers use F12. Oh and I tried that I used Vista Boot Pro to copy the Vista bootloader to the XP drive after replacing NTLDR.

[tyle6]

So if this allows you to just choose wich drive you are going to use as the boot drive would you not just simply install both OS on each drive regularly?
Even though the vista bootloader should still be able to boot XP... how exactly did the the NTLDR get removed at first?
When you installed XP was it set as the secondary drive?

[werty316]

Instead of using the "F8" option to choose which HDD you want to boot from, does doing this using the boot order setting in the BIOS help at all or do you still get the NTLDR error?

tyle, unless I am mistaken Miles has his dual boot setup so there is not boot loader of any kind which is why he uses the "F8" option to choose which OS he wants to boot into.

I think you might have misunderstood the steps he took to install both XP and Vista which would be like this:

1) with only one HDD plugged in XP was installed on "HDD-1",
2) unplugged "HDD-1",
3) plugged in "HDD-2" and installed Vista,
4) plugged in "HDD-1 back in.

[nes]

Were both of the drives connected upon Vista install? Vista will road hog your HDDs if they are all present during the install. I know that you can repair Vista's NTDLR error with the disk itself but I think you have to make a boot parameter for XP with an application of some kind. I can't remember which one but as soon as I leave my fiance's crib I'll post for you; unless the rest of the bunch t-shoots your issues.

I want to dual boot between Vista Home Premium and Ultimate 64 Vista in the future, FTW.

[tyle6]

Obviously he didn't just install it that way or the NTLDR would not have been removed...
eitherway... Why would you not just install XP on the master and vista on the slave and use vistas boot loader to load XP? and save ever having to enter "BIOS" or the drive menu to choose your OS? this method has always worked for me...

Were both of the drives connected upon Vista install?
he claims it was not although it certainly seems it was for the NTLDR to have been removed... unless he installed XP to the slave in the first place...

[Miles]

There was a copy of XP on the C drive when I installed it on the D drive and both were plugged in when I did the install. The copy of XP on the C drive was from a different computer and frankly I thought the C drive was empty so I didn't check it. I finally ended up reformatting the D drive as I couldn't get it to boot.

Now I have Vista on the C drive the D drive is empty and my E drive is for backup and storage. I understand that if I load XP on the D drive now with Vista on the C drive it will overwrite it's boot sector, not good. I'm not sure there's a way to accomplish it now as everything suggests XP needs to be installed first.

[werty316]

1) Unplug "C: drive,"
2) leave "D: drive" plugged in and install XP.

As long as you only have only one HDD plugged in when installing whichever OS,this should work without any issues. Its like installing an OS as you would normally do except you are doing in two seperate instances(XP and Vista) on two different HDDs.

[PP Mguire]

As long as a HD isnt plugged in the OS cant see the other OS i presume. Heres what i would do.

1 Install Vista on C drive.
2 Unplug Vista drive
3 Install XP on D drive.

Should work fine then you can use your boot menu to load which drive you want. I do it all the time.

[Miles]

The second time was a charm its working as it should now, thanks guys!

[Limbo]

I did it the way you said you did, installed XP with only the drive it was to be installed to in the system. Removed (disconnected) that drive and installed Vista on another drive. Reconnected the XP drive and I enter the BIOS to select which install to boot from, never used F8. It works fine for me. Be careful not to defragment either install disk from within the other install as I have heard of issues created when doing this.

DOH! Missed your success post somehow...hehehe... so does the F8 feature work ok as well?

[Miles]

Absolutely, F8 works fine. It's available on all ASUS motherboards and as I said earlier some of the other manufactuers like Gigabyte (I believe) use F12 for the same function.

[Kougar]

I have had lots of fun with Vista and XP in a dual-boot config so I know at least a fair bit about this. So when I say I don't understand why it didn't work the first time, that is saying something. If you had the XP drive unplugged when installing Vista it should have worked.

Is it possible that when you attempted to boot to XP that you somehow were booting to the other copy of XP that belonged to a different computer? That would explain the NTLDR error and why it didn't work. I will admit I've done this before, as my drives are identical I can't distinguish them apart from within the BIOS or the drive boot menu I use via F12.

[Limbo]

I will admit I've done this before, as my drives are identical I can't distinguish them apart from within the BIOS or the drive boot menu I use via F12.

I named my drives and the names show up in the BIOS, works well.

[Kougar]

I named my drives and the names show up in the BIOS, works well.

Named them from within the BIOS? I named my drives as well, but the BIOS only displays the model# and size. Since all my drives are the same exact model# and same size... it didn't help much!

[PP Mguire]

Absolutely, F8 works fine. It's available on all ASUS motherboards and as I said earlier some of the other manufactuers like Gigabyte (I believe) use F12 for the same function.Yea like hes saying its been around on mobos for a long time. Like i said my button for the quick boot menu is escape. Its the same as going into the bios cept its not permanent.

[Limbo]

Named them from within the BIOS? I named my drives as well, but the BIOS only displays the model# and size. Since all my drives are the same exact model# and same size... it didn't help much!

My apologies, wondered when you would catch me on that. :ahhhhh: Mine were both RAID installs and I named them when I set up the arrays.