vista xp dual boot tip

After 5 hours of yelling and screaming at my computer and ms, of
course the solution seems so obvious. It is, what I would consider, a
bug, some might say a "shortcoming", but if you called it a "feature"
I would have to argue with you. Modern BIOS systems allow you to list
a prioritized list of hard disks in your boot sequence. Windows
Vista's boot Manager (or winload.exe, I don't know) does not support
this feature and there is no documentation regarding this anywhere
that I can find. Basically, you _must_ have the hard drive that has
bootmgr.exe on it be the first hard disk in the prioritized list,
otherwise you will get an error saying "bootmgr is not found" and the
boot sequence aborts. bcdedit.exe does not solve the problem, you
_must_ configure your BIOS.

Hi John,

The only way to effectively dual boot between Vista and WinXP without damage
is to hide the partition each operating system is installed on from each
other. This is not a bug but *is* by design. Microsoft made this choice long
before Vista was release to the public. You would have saved yourself 5
hours by posting this question here. The solution is to use a 3ed party boot
manager such as BootIt NG to hide partitions. The following link will
provide information on how to perform this.

Dual Booting Windows Vista & Windows XP:
http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org

John wrote:
> After 5 hours of yelling and screaming at my computer and ms, of
> course the solution seems so obvious. It is, what I would consider, a
> bug, some might say a "shortcoming", but if you called it a "feature"
> I would have to argue with you. Modern BIOS systems allow you to list
> a prioritized list of hard disks in your boot sequence. Windows
> Vista's boot Manager (or winload.exe, I don't know) does not support
> this feature and there is no documentation regarding this anywhere
> that I can find. Basically, you _must_ have the hard drive that has
> bootmgr.exe on it be the first hard disk in the prioritized list,
> otherwise you will get an error saying "bootmgr is not found" and the
> boot sequence aborts. bcdedit.exe does not solve the problem, you
> _must_ configure your BIOS.

"John" wrote:
> After 5 hours of yelling and screaming at my computer and ms,
> of course the solution seems so obvious. It is, what I would
> consider, a bug, some might say a "shortcoming", but if you
> called it a "feature" I would have to argue with you. Modern
> BIOS systems allow you to list a prioritized list of hard disks
> in your boot sequence. Windows Vista's boot Manager (or
> winload.exe, I don't know) does not support this feature and
> there is no documentation regarding this anywhere that I can
> find. Basically, you _must_ have the hard drive that has
> bootmgr.exe on it be the first hard disk in the prioritized list,
> otherwise you will get an error saying "bootmgr is not found"
> and the boot sequence aborts. bcdedit.exe does not solve the
> problem, you _must_ configure your BIOS.


This control by the hard disk at the head of the BIOS's hard
drive priority list existed in the WinNT/2K/XP family of OSes
and in earlier MS OSes. It can be used for multi-booting
between OSes if they reside on different hard drives.

*TimDaniels*

It is a problem with some BIOS'. It sounds like yours is one of the problem
BIOS'.

--
Kerry Brown
Microsoft MVP - Shell/User
http://www.vistahelp.ca


"John" <> wrote in message
news: ups.com...
> After 5 hours of yelling and screaming at my computer and ms, of
> course the solution seems so obvious. It is, what I would consider, a
> bug, some might say a "shortcoming", but if you called it a "feature"
> I would have to argue with you. Modern BIOS systems allow you to list
> a prioritized list of hard disks in your boot sequence. Windows
> Vista's boot Manager (or winload.exe, I don't know) does not support
> this feature and there is no documentation regarding this anywhere
> that I can find. Basically, you _must_ have the hard drive that has
> bootmgr.exe on it be the first hard disk in the prioritized list,
> otherwise you will get an error saying "bootmgr is not found" and the
> boot sequence aborts. bcdedit.exe does not solve the problem, you
> _must_ configure your BIOS.
>

On Mon, 03 Sep 2007 18:43:48 -0700, John <> wrote:

>After 5 hours of yelling and screaming at my computer and ms, of
>course the solution seems so obvious. It is, what I would consider, a
>bug, some might say a "shortcoming", but if you called it a "feature"
>I would have to argue with you. Modern BIOS systems allow you to list
>a prioritized list of hard disks in your boot sequence. Windows
>Vista's boot Manager (or winload.exe, I don't know) does not support
>this feature and there is no documentation regarding this anywhere
>that I can find. Basically, you _must_ have the hard drive that has
>bootmgr.exe on it be the first hard disk in the prioritized list,
>otherwise you will get an error saying "bootmgr is not found" and the
>boot sequence aborts. bcdedit.exe does not solve the problem, you
>_must_ configure your BIOS.

If you call it a bug, then you don't have a proper understanding of
how the Hard Disk Boot Priority function is designed to work.

In the days of IDE drives only, it was possible to change the order of
drive enumeration by physically moving a disk from one cable to the
other and changing a drive from master to slave. This is how one would
set a particular disk to be the first drive, i.e., the drive that the
BIOS boots, which is the drive that contains the active primary
partition and becomes the Windows system partition, the partition that
has to contain boot files such as ntldr, ntdetect.com, boot.ini, and
Boot Manager.

With the addition of SATA disks to the mix, this is no longer
possible, since how does one physically set either an IDE or SATA disk
to be the first drive. A jumper on the motherboard could be used, I
suppose. However, the Hard Disk Boot Priority setting in the BIOS
setup makes it possible to easily change the enumeration order of all
the disks.

During Windows installation, Windows setup uses the enumerated disk
order list to determine that the first disk in the list is supposed to
contain the system partition, and drive letters are assigned to
existing partitions on all of the disks in the order of their
enumeration.

The Hard Disk Boot Priority isn't really a boot sequence list. The
BIOS will only boot the disk at the top of the list, and if that disk
is not bootable, you have failure.

"Andy" <1@2.3> wrote:
> John <> wrote:
>
>>After 5 hours of yelling and screaming at my computer and ms, of
>>course the solution seems so obvious. It is, what I would consider, a
>>bug, some might say a "shortcoming", but if you called it a "feature"
>>I would have to argue with you. Modern BIOS systems allow you to list
>>a prioritized list of hard disks in your boot sequence. Windows
>>Vista's boot Manager (or winload.exe, I don't know) does not support
>>this feature and there is no documentation regarding this anywhere
>>that I can find. Basically, you _must_ have the hard drive that has
>>bootmgr.exe on it be the first hard disk in the prioritized list,
>>otherwise you will get an error saying "bootmgr is not found" and the
>>boot sequence aborts. bcdedit.exe does not solve the problem, you
>>_must_ configure your BIOS.
>
> If you call it a bug, then you don't have a proper understanding of
> how the Hard Disk Boot Priority function is designed to work.
>
> In the days of IDE drives only, it was possible to change the order of
> drive enumeration by physically moving a disk from one cable to the
> other and changing a drive from master to slave. This is how one would
> set a particular disk to be the first drive, i.e., the drive that the
> BIOS boots, which is the drive that contains the active primary
> partition and becomes the Windows system partition, the partition that
> has to contain boot files such as ntldr, ntdetect.com, boot.ini, and
> Boot Manager.
>
> With the addition of SATA disks to the mix, this is no longer
> possible, since how does one physically set either an IDE or SATA disk
> to be the first drive. A jumper on the motherboard could be used, I
> suppose. However, the Hard Disk Boot Priority setting in the BIOS
> setup makes it possible to easily change the enumeration order of all
> the disks.
>
> During Windows installation, Windows setup uses the enumerated disk
> order list to determine that the first disk in the list is supposed to
> contain the system partition, and drive letters are assigned to
> existing partitions on all of the disks in the order of their
> enumeration.
>
> The Hard Disk Boot Priority isn't really a boot sequence list. The
> BIOS will only boot the disk at the top of the list, and if that disk
> is not bootable, you have failure.

This is mostly correct. But... my "old" Dell BIOS (born Jan 1999)
and licensed from Phoenix Technologies, allows the Hard Drive
Boot Order (i.e. Priority) to be set to allow *any* hard drive in
the system to control booting. It has a default order that persists
until the user resets it. The default order is:
Master, IDE ch.0,
Slave, IDE ch.0,
Master, IDE ch.1,
Slave, IDE ch.1.

That means that the BIOS will look first at any device that is
a hard drive that is Master and connected to IDE ch. 0 and
has a valid MBR. If the above is True, it will pass control to
that MBR. If the conditions are not all True, it will look for a
hard drive that is Slave and connected to IDE ch. 0 and
has a valid MBR. If the above is True, it will pass control to
that MBR. Et cetera.

But if one enters the BIOS by pressing Delete early in the startup
procedure, one can adjust that Hard Drive Boot Order to any
sequence that one desires. One can therefore make even the
Slave hard drive on IDE ch. 1 be the controlling hard drive for
bootup by either putting it at the head of the Hard Drive Boot
Order list in the BIOS, or by making it the only hard drive that
is connected in the system.

In a strictly SATA system, the default Hard Drive Boot Order
usually (as far as I can tell) follows the numbering of the SATA
ports. In a mixed system, BIOSes seem to vary, and the
default may include the old PATA drives followed by the SATA
drives, or the SATA drives may have to be "enabled", thereby
putting SATA drives ahead of the PATA drives. The mixed
systems can be a puzzle, and there have been many questions
here involving them as SATA became available on motherboards.

Beyond telling which hard drive will get control for booting,
the Hard Drive Boot Order also defines the meaning of "x"
in "rdisk(x)" in the boot.ini boot menu file used by the
WinNT/2K/XP family of OSes. That is, "rdisk(0)" specifies
the hard drive at the head of the list, "rdisk(1)" specifies the
next hard drive, etc. Thus, "rdisk()" can direct the boot
loader (ntldr) to go to any hard drive in the system to find
the OS folder. So although the hard drive at the head of
the list may get control and the ntldr boot manager in its
"active" primary partition may control booting, the boot.ini
file may direct that the OS be loaded from a partition on
another hard drive. (If you understand partition numbering,
that partition can even be a logical drive in an Extended
partition.) I expect that a similar Hard Drive Boot Order
scheme and booting flexibility also exist in Vista.

*TimDaniels*

Now I'm sure it has been mentioned in one of the external links... or
hopefully it has, but I've found this to work.

WIPE DRIVE.
INSTALL OLD OS
INSTALL VISTA (YOUR CHOICE OF VERSION)
LOAD UP INTO VISTA
FROM VISTA DOWNLOAD \"VISTA BOOT PRO\" CAN BE FOUND ON GOOGLE.
INSTALL
GO TO OS MANAGMENT, AND CHANGE THE NAMES OF THE OPERATING SYSTEMS AND
SET WHICH ONE YOU WANT IT DEFAULTED TO. AND RESTART.....
Enjoy your new modified windows vista boot menu.

much love
*PDM*


--
PriceDoesntMatter

Bert Kinney wrote:
> Hi John,
>
> The only way to effectively dual boot between Vista and WinXP without
> damage is to hide the partition each operating system is installed on
> from each other. This is not a bug but *is* by design. Microsoft made
> this choice long before Vista was release to the public. You would have
> saved yourself 5 hours by posting this question here. The solution is to
> use a 3ed party boot manager such as BootIt NG to hide partitions. The
> following link will provide information on how to perform this.
>
> Dual Booting Windows Vista & Windows XP:
> http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html

Thanks very much Bert! I have a couple more questions (if you don't
mind). I was lucky enough to install the OSs on different drives, but
the situation is a little more complicated. It is a mxed IDE\SATA
config. Vista is installed on the sole partition of the master IDE (CD
drive is slave). XP is installed on an SATA drive which is partitioned
into a System drive (with XP) and a Data drive (which has My Documents,
etc). I would like to use your solution to disable mounting the Vista
drive from Device Manager on XP, but it turns out that the Vista drive
is the C: drive and the XP drive is D: when I boot to XP. I'm afraid
that disabling the Vista drive on XP will re-map the existing D: to C:
on reboot which will screw everything up and require a reinstall to recover.

questions:

1) Is this a ramification of an IDE/SATA mix? Would replacing the IDE
with an SATA be recommended?

2) How do I solve the problem of re-mapping of drives if I can only use
the "disabling of the Vista drive through Device Manager" after XP is
installed? (this questions assumes that the drives will be re-mapped if
I disable the Vista drive in my current config, I haven't pressed the
button yet )

Again, thank you very much for your insights
(btw, I retract my statement of a "bug", I obviously did not understand
the meaning of the BIOS setting, or the complexity of the issue.)

John, I don't think you understand what Bert said and linked to. Wait for
clarification before you proceed

"John" <> wrote in message
news:O%...
> Bert Kinney wrote:
>> Hi John,
>>
>> The only way to effectively dual boot between Vista and WinXP without
>> damage is to hide the partition each operating system is installed on
>> from each other. This is not a bug but *is* by design. Microsoft made
>> this choice long before Vista was release to the public. You would have
>> saved yourself 5 hours by posting this question here. The solution is to
>> use a 3ed party boot manager such as BootIt NG to hide partitions. The
>> following link will provide information on how to perform this.
>>
>> Dual Booting Windows Vista & Windows XP:
>> http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html
>
> Thanks very much Bert! I have a couple more questions (if you don't mind).
> I was lucky enough to install the OSs on different drives, but the
> situation is a little more complicated. It is a mxed IDE\SATA config.
> Vista is installed on the sole partition of the master IDE (CD drive is
> slave). XP is installed on an SATA drive which is partitioned into a
> System drive (with XP) and a Data drive (which has My Documents, etc). I
> would like to use your solution to disable mounting the Vista drive from
> Device Manager on XP, but it turns out that the Vista drive is the C:
> drive and the XP drive is D: when I boot to XP. I'm afraid that disabling
> the Vista drive on XP will re-map the existing D: to C: on reboot which
> will screw everything up and require a reinstall to recover.
>
> questions:
>
> 1) Is this a ramification of an IDE/SATA mix? Would replacing the IDE with
> an SATA be recommended?
>
> 2) How do I solve the problem of re-mapping of drives if I can only use
> the "disabling of the Vista drive through Device Manager" after XP is
> installed? (this questions assumes that the drives will be re-mapped if I
> disable the Vista drive in my current config, I haven't pressed the button
> yet )
>
> Again, thank you very much for your insights
> (btw, I retract my statement of a "bug", I obviously did not understand
> the meaning of the BIOS setting, or the complexity of the issue.)

John wrote:
> Bert Kinney wrote:
>> Hi John,
>>
>> The only way to effectively dual boot between Vista and WinXP without
>> damage is to hide the partition each operating system is installed on
>> from each other. This is not a bug but *is* by design. Microsoft made
>> this choice long before Vista was release to the public. You would
>> have saved yourself 5 hours by posting this question here. The
>> solution is to use a 3ed party boot manager such as BootIt NG to hide
>> partitions. The following link will provide information on how to
>> perform this.
>>
>> Dual Booting Windows Vista & Windows XP:
>> http://bertk.mvps.org/html/dualboot.html
>
> Thanks very much Bert! I have a couple more questions (if you don't
> mind). I was lucky enough to install the OSs on different drives, but
> the situation is a little more complicated. It is a mxed IDE\SATA
> config. Vista is installed on the sole partition of the master IDE (CD
> drive is slave). XP is installed on an SATA drive which is partitioned
> into a System drive (with XP) and a Data drive (which has My Documents,
> etc). I would like to use your solution to disable mounting the Vista
> drive from Device Manager on XP, but it turns out that the Vista drive
> is the C: drive and the XP drive is D: when I boot to XP. I'm afraid
> that disabling the Vista drive on XP will re-map the existing D: to C:
> on reboot which will screw everything up and require a reinstall to recover.

You're welcome John.

I would recommend using BootIt NG rather than the device manager approach.
As a matter of fact I removed it from the site.

Using BING both OS can be easily installed on one drive. Planing is the key.

> questions:
>
> 1) Is this a ramification of an IDE/SATA mix? Would replacing the IDE
> with an SATA be recommended?

Mixing IDE and SATA is complicated. You will see what I mean here.
http://www.computerhaven.info/forum/tm.aspx?m=52909
BING will make this much easier stable solution.

How large is the IDE drive XP is installed on?

> 2) How do I solve the problem of re-mapping of drives if I can only use
> the "disabling of the Vista drive through Device Manager" after XP is
> installed? (this questions assumes that the drives will be re-mapped if
> I disable the Vista drive in my current config, I haven't pressed the
> button yet )

If there's enough room on the IDE drive, one solution would be using BING,
create another partition and install Vista to it. And use the SATA drive to
store data files both XP and Vista can access.

> Again, thank you very much for your insights
> (btw, I retract my statement of a "bug", I obviously did not understand
> the meaning of the BIOS setting, or the complexity of the issue.)

No problem.

Regards,
Bert Kinney MS-MVP Shell/User
http://bertk.mvps.org
Member: http://dts-l.org