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d3xxer

New Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2011
Messages
6
Hi,
At start i had windows xp then i bought another hard drive and I installed windows 7 on it (disconnected the one with XP ) After instalation I have connected old drive (with XP installed) so after few runs i realized that i would use my old XP, when i disconnected drive with windows 7 my computer says that he cannot start, windows XP wont start;/

So how can I repair my old windows XP?
I still can open this hard drive using windows 7.

Its probably some error with boot.ini but i dont have any clue what can i do in Windows 7.
Many thanks for future help.
 

Solution
patcooke
Windows 7 does not use boot.ini. You could repair the boot parameters using one of a number of boot utilities but probably the easiest way for you to sort this would be to reformat the drive with Win 7 on it, boot from the XP with the Win 7 drive installed, repair the XP install and install Windows 7 to the new drive under XP. This will set the boot options on your XP drive to select either system at startup.
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patcooke

patcooke

Microsoft MVP
Microsoft MVP
Joined
May 16, 2010
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Windows 7 does not use boot.ini. You could repair the boot parameters using one of a number of boot utilities but probably the easiest way for you to sort this would be to reformat the drive with Win 7 on it, boot from the XP with the Win 7 drive installed, repair the XP install and install Windows 7 to the new drive under XP. This will set the boot options on your XP drive to select either system at startup.
 

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Solution
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d3xxer

New Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2011
Messages
6
Big thanks for fast reply
I removed hard drive with windows 7, now I would like to have one with XP only
Is there any way to change something in my old windows XP instalation ?
I found my boot.ini files it looks like this:
[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect


I also have other files on my drive like bootmgr and others i dont know what to change to make my computer look for XP instalation not for missing partition with win7.Maybe i should delete bootmgr?

Thx again for helping!!!
 

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D

d3xxer

New Member
Joined
Oct 9, 2011
Messages
6
I tried to remove booting files from windows7 but some of them didnt allow me to do so.
I used easybcd (deleted win7 startup added winxp) this worked for me.
 

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Medico

Medico

Senior Member
Joined
Sep 20, 2011
Messages
1,148
As long as you have 2 HD's why not just set up a dual boot system XP / Win 7? Seems to make sense to me.
 

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