Windows 7 Trouble multi-booting, XP won't boot, HELP.

Caustic

New Member
Have you ever been in a situation where you desperately need help? Well, I'm in that position currently. This is a time-essential matter and I am appreciative to ANY help/tips/ideas that you have. I seriously need some fucking help here.

Alright, I have two hard drives. C, and Y.

C is the primary hard drive from which I boot Windows XP from, and Y is where all of my other operating systems will be. I had only XP installed, and I decided I wanted to use Windows 7 as well as other operating systems such as Fedora. I first installed Windows 7, and for whatever reason it didn't recognize XP, so it would only boot to 7. I tried and tried to get 7 to recognize XP on boot, but it simply wouldn't. I figured installing Fedora might help, but it didn't. I also tried using EasyBCD to get XP to function, but alas - it won't help.

If I remove hard drive Y, and try to boot to XP it says NTLDR is missing. I've tried fucking everything to get XP to work. I used a boot cd, I tried XP's install disc (whenever I try to copy the ntldr files it won't let me write to the hard drive, it says Access is Denied.) and I cannot install Windows XP all over again. That would truly be a disastrous solution.

What I want to know is
1. How can I get XP to boot again?
2. How can I get Windows 7 to recognize XP when I install it?
3. After Windows 7 and XP are working harmoniously, how can I get other operating systems like Fedora to work?

Please, I beg of you - help! I will be eternally appreciative.

Thanks for your time.
 
1. How can I get XP to boot again?

Are you sure you had installed 7 really to Y, without formatting drive C ? If yes, then go to Control Panel > System > Additional System Parameters (the last option) > Boot & Restore, where you can set it back to XP. EasyBCD is also supposed to show you 2 entries, XP & 7, that you can set to boot by default.


2. How can I get Windows 7 to recognize XP when I install it?

If you install 7 to a partition different from XP's, all'll be alright. Use Control Panel > System Options or EasyBCD to switch between the boot entries.



3. After Windows 7 and XP are working harmoniously, how can I get other operating systems like Fedora to work?

You need to have a seperate partition for each new OS, that's it. Before an OS installation process, do not format partitions on which other OS's sit. Use Control Panel, Easy BCD and iReboot to switch among OS boot entries.

Good luck. :)
 
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