Unable to access VIsta ro XP partition

Hello,

I have three drives which consist of one that has Vista, another with XP and
just recently i installed Windows 7 on the other drive. After installing
Windows 7, and tinkering around with it i decided to get back to Vista to
work on somethings. i went to my BIOS and changed my drive to boot to the
Vista drive, but i would get a message that states to use a drive that is
bootable or insert media to boot from. i reverted back to windows 7 and i
noticed both my XP and Vista drives didn't have a drive letter and wasn't
assessible even after attempting to rescan drives. I then attempted to boot
to my XP drive, but the same message was prompted. Now i'm concerned that the
install must of some how messed with both my OS's and am stuck on getting
them to boot.

Since i had some space on my Vista drive i inserted my Vista installer, and
noticed when given the option to pick a drive/partition to install the OS in
it recognized the drives/names of both my XP and Vista partitions
(Vista=Phatcat XP=Fatcat), which leads me to believe that they are still
there, but for some reason unaccessible. I'd appreciate any leads on how to
get them back.

Regards,

Edgar

Thanks for responding. I did revert back to my original boot sequence, and
tried both the Vista and XP drive as the first boot drive (above CD and
floppy). The drives show up in the BIOS(they are both SATA and the new
Windows 7 is a IDE). The only time it boots is when i add the IDE drive as
the first boot drive. Whats weird is that the drive letters don't even show
up in Disk management for these drives either. I figured at least i should be
able to see them or explore them, but nothing. The drive shows up in disk
management, but the drive letter isn't associated with them and i only have
the option to delete volume when i right click their partition.

"Hobo" wrote:

> Edgar wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have three drives which consist of one that has Vista, another with XP and
> > just recently i installed Windows 7 on the other drive. After installing
> > Windows 7, and tinkering around with it i decided to get back to Vista to
> > work on somethings. i went to my BIOS and changed my drive to boot to the
> > Vista drive, but i would get a message that states to use a drive that is
> > bootable or insert media to boot from. i reverted back to windows 7 and i
> > noticed both my XP and Vista drives didn't have a drive letter and wasn't
> > assessible even after attempting to rescan drives. I then attempted to boot
> > to my XP drive, but the same message was prompted. Now i'm concerned that the
> > install must of some how messed with both my OS's and am stuck on getting
> > them to boot.
> >
> > Since i had some space on my Vista drive i inserted my Vista installer, and
> > noticed when given the option to pick a drive/partition to install the OS in
> > it recognized the drives/names of both my XP and Vista partitions
> > (Vista=Phatcat XP=Fatcat), which leads me to believe that they are still
> > there, but for some reason unaccessible. I'd appreciate any leads on how to
> > get them back.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Edgar
>
> Edgar, go back into your bios and put the drives back the way they were
> and then re-boot. After the bios runs, you should get a menu screen
> allowing you to select which of the three OS's you wish to start.
>
> When you changed the the primary drive in bios, you changed to a drive
> that does not have the boot loader on it. - therefore, the boot problem
> you described.
>

On Jan 15, 4:19*pm, Edgar <Ed...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> Hello,
>
> I have three drives which consist of one that has Vista, another with XP and
> just recently i installed Windows 7 on the other drive. After installing
> Windows 7, and tinkering around with it i decided to get back to Vista to
> work on somethings. i went to my BIOS and changed my drive to boot to the
> Vista drive, but i would get a message that states to use a drive that is
> bootable or insert media to boot from. i reverted back to windows 7 and i
> noticed both my XP and Vista drives didn't have a drive letter and wasn't
> assessible even after attempting to rescan drives. I then attempted to boot
> to my XP drive, but the same message was prompted. Now i'm concerned thatthe
> install must of some how messed with both my OS's and am stuck on getting
> them to boot.
>
> Since i had some space on my Vista drive i inserted my Vista installer, and
> noticed when given the option to pick a drive/partition to install the OSin
> it recognized the drives/names of both my XP and Vista partitions
> (Vista=Phatcat XP=Fatcat), which leads me to believe that they are still
> there, but for some reason unaccessible. I'd appreciate any leads on how to
> get them back.
>
> Regards,
>
> Edgar

It looks as if installing Windows 7 has replaced the boot loaders for
XP and Vista with its own boot loader.
I would try a repair install of both XP and Vista.

Eric,
PC Buyer Beware!
http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/

Bah i hope not. i was concerned about that and felt that dedicating it to its
own drive would avoid that, but never know. I will attempt to rebuild it
usign the Vista disk, but i may have to attempt to do this through the cmd
prompt since it doesn't recognize the OS when i select Repair yoru Computer.
Unless it's still ok to select Next even if there is no OS recognized and
attemp a Startup repair? Would you know if it's smart enough to attemp the
rebuild on the drive/OS?

Edgar

"Edgar" wrote:

> Thanks for responding. I did revert back to my original boot sequence, and
> tried both the Vista and XP drive as the first boot drive (above CD and
> floppy). The drives show up in the BIOS(they are both SATA and the new
> Windows 7 is a IDE). The only time it boots is when i add the IDE drive as
> the first boot drive. Whats weird is that the drive letters don't even show
> up in Disk management for these drives either. I figured at least i should be
> able to see them or explore them, but nothing. The drive shows up in disk
> management, but the drive letter isn't associated with them and i only have
> the option to delete volume when i right click their partition.
>
> "Hobo" wrote:
>
> > Edgar wrote:
> > > Hello,
> > >
> > > I have three drives which consist of one that has Vista, another with XP and
> > > just recently i installed Windows 7 on the other drive. After installing
> > > Windows 7, and tinkering around with it i decided to get back to Vista to
> > > work on somethings. i went to my BIOS and changed my drive to boot to the
> > > Vista drive, but i would get a message that states to use a drive that is
> > > bootable or insert media to boot from. i reverted back to windows 7 and i
> > > noticed both my XP and Vista drives didn't have a drive letter and wasn't
> > > assessible even after attempting to rescan drives. I then attempted to boot
> > > to my XP drive, but the same message was prompted. Now i'm concerned that the
> > > install must of some how messed with both my OS's and am stuck on getting
> > > them to boot.
> > >
> > > Since i had some space on my Vista drive i inserted my Vista installer, and
> > > noticed when given the option to pick a drive/partition to install the OS in
> > > it recognized the drives/names of both my XP and Vista partitions
> > > (Vista=Phatcat XP=Fatcat), which leads me to believe that they are still
> > > there, but for some reason unaccessible. I'd appreciate any leads on how to
> > > get them back.
> > >
> > > Regards,
> > >
> > > Edgar
> >
> > Edgar, go back into your bios and put the drives back the way they were
> > and then re-boot. After the bios runs, you should get a menu screen
> > allowing you to select which of the three OS's you wish to start.
> >
> > When you changed the the primary drive in bios, you changed to a drive
> > that does not have the boot loader on it. - therefore, the boot problem
> > you described.
> >

Eric,

So I reinstalled Vista on the second half of the same drive, with the non
functioning Vista, and was able to get all three OS's to show up during the
boot up, but only the new Vista and Windows 7 load up properly. The original
Windows Vista gets to the loading bar and then you hear the disk spinning,
but then restarts.

I loaded a Neo partition app to recognize teh partitions and noticed that
Vista has a C drive and Windows 7 has F,which are avaialbe under My computer,
but my old Vista has \Device\HarddiskVolume3. Any thoughts on how to access
the partition?

I would like to run chkdsk or rebuild the bootloader on the old Vista
partition, but there is not drive associated to it so i can't :/ only on C
and F could i perform this.

There are a total of 3 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 5 seconds.
Default OS: Windows Vista
Entry #1
Name: Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #2
Name: Windows 7 Ultimate (recovered)
BCD ID: {eae036b3-e35c-11dd-b54e-83faf3dc47c1}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows
Entry #3
Name: Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (recovered)
BCD ID: {eae036b4-e35c-11dd-b54e-83faf3dc47c1}
Drive: \Device\HarddiskVolume3
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows


"Eric" wrote:

> On Jan 15, 4:19 pm, Edgar <Ed...@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:
> > Hello,
> >
> > I have three drives which consist of one that has Vista, another with XP and
> > just recently i installed Windows 7 on the other drive. After installing
> > Windows 7, and tinkering around with it i decided to get back to Vista to
> > work on somethings. i went to my BIOS and changed my drive to boot to the
> > Vista drive, but i would get a message that states to use a drive that is
> > bootable or insert media to boot from. i reverted back to windows 7 and i
> > noticed both my XP and Vista drives didn't have a drive letter and wasn't
> > assessible even after attempting to rescan drives. I then attempted to boot
> > to my XP drive, but the same message was prompted. Now i'm concerned that the
> > install must of some how messed with both my OS's and am stuck on getting
> > them to boot.
> >
> > Since i had some space on my Vista drive i inserted my Vista installer, and
> > noticed when given the option to pick a drive/partition to install the OS in
> > it recognized the drives/names of both my XP and Vista partitions
> > (Vista=Phatcat XP=Fatcat), which leads me to believe that they are still
> > there, but for some reason unaccessible. I'd appreciate any leads on how to
> > get them back.
> >
> > Regards,
> >
> > Edgar
>
> It looks as if installing Windows 7 has replaced the boot loaders for
> XP and Vista with its own boot loader.
> I would try a repair install of both XP and Vista.
>
> Eric,
> PC Buyer Beware!
> http://www.pcbuyerbeware.co.uk/
>