Windows 7 Need Help Dual Boothing (I HAVE TRIED FIXMBR)

james.harding

New Member
Whoops, typo in title :-(

Hello world!,

The situation:
I have two hard drives in my computer, Each with two partitions.
Hard Drive One has two partitions which are just used for storing stuff.
Hard Drive Two has two partitions, first one is for XP, and second is for Windows 7

C: is windows 7
D: is windows XP


I previously had Ubuntu (with GRUB...EWWW) in the second partition of Hard Drive Two...I removed that partition and popped windows 7 in there.

Here is what my drive configuration looks like right now...

Link Removed due to 404 Error

The Problem:
I am trying to get my system to be able to dual boot between XP and Win7. However, I cannot seem to get Win7 to recognise that XP is in existence. I am worried that Ubuntu screwed up something important with my hard drives. I have no idea about where the MBR/Partition Tables are stored. I do not know where the leftovers of GRUB are. I feel completly lost :-(

Please help?

Cheers,
James
 
Last edited:
Not sure what GRUB etc did. however but you should be able to recover BOTH OS'es without re-installing either again.
Work like this.

1) load Windows XP install disk
2) install up to point where it says Repair system using the recovery console
3) select that option.
4) choose the windows system it finds when it says choose what windows system you want to repair.
5) type FIXMBR.

(You'll need your Windows XP user / admin password if you had one).

At this point you should be able to boot Windows XP (in fact this will be the only Windows system you see actually).

6) now insert your Windows 7 DVD
7) go through install procedure until you get option Repair system.

This should create a new boot loader -- you should then at bootup see 2 options in the boot menu.

Previous version of Windows
Windows 7

If you are using SATA disks only then your Windows XP CD might not see the SATA drives - in which case it's more complex. You'll have to create a new XP CD via nLite and "slipstream". To do that is beyond the scope of this post -- Google will have to help you there.

cheers
jimbo
 
Hello,

Thanks for the suggestions!

I went through what you suggested...and this is what happened:

After booting from the XP recovery disk, and using FIXMBR, when i booted my computer it went into XP...which is good...
As you said, there was no Win7 though, so i restarted, and selected the "boot repair" option in the Win7 boot disk. It did not recognise there being any XP partition installed. It did its "fixing" and now I am back where i started, only have Windows7

Any other suggestions? Would the partition types (see the screenshot below) have anything to do with it? (i.e. system, active, primary partition, etc)

Link Removed due to 404 Error

Cheers,
James
 
Cheers mate! Worked perfectly after a few hours of tinkering... ( actually had this suggestion from somebody's blog post about dual booting, and i just got it working today)

Thanks so much,
James
 
Hello,

Thanks for the suggestions!

I went through what you suggested...and this is what happened:

After booting from the XP recovery disk, and using FIXMBR, when i booted my computer it went into XP...which is good...
As you said, there was no Win7 though, so i restarted, and selected the "boot repair" option in the Win7 boot disk. It did not recognise there being any XP partition installed. It did its "fixing" and now I am back where i started, only have Windows7

Any other suggestions? Would the partition types (see the screenshot below) have anything to do with it? (i.e. system, active, primary partition, etc)

Link Removed due to 404 Error

Cheers,
James

Hi,
From your above image it looks like Partition C: has your Windows 7 and Partition D: total 372.53 GB with 260.24 GB free space has 112.29GB used and most likely from your WinXP.

So If we can get NTLDR in WinXP that must become bootable.

Using the command prompt in Win 7 try typing and entering the following commands Like:

bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d "Windows XP"
bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=D:

bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr
bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} /addlast

Reboot the computer and see if you get dual boot menu
hope this helps
 
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