Automatically boot into XP

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colinstu

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Oct 11, 2007
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I installed Windows 7 on a separate harddrive, yet it was still able to change my MBR on my main XP Raid, so even removing the drive w/ W7 on it I still have to manually choose to boot into XP everytime I turn on my computer.

Is there any way to make it go straight into XP? Run>MSconfig>boot.ini, I don't see any other entries other then XP, so I don't know how/why it things W7 is still there.

I have heard about going into the recovery console w/ the XP disk, but then I'm not able to load my Raid drivers (because I have to push F6).

Any ideas? Thanks.
 
colinstu said:
, so I don't know how/why it things W7 is still there.
Click to expand...
Your BIOS must have been set to give boot priority to your XP hard drives (RAID) when you installed Windows 7. So, Windows 7 overwrote the boot loader on your XP.
Windows 7 does not use boot.ini. That is why boot.ini has not changed.


I have heard about going into the recovery console w/ the XP disk, but then I'm not able to load my Raid drivers (because I have to push F6).
Click to expand...
After you press F6 and load your RAID drivers, can you not enter the recovery console?
After loading all the files, it will give you three choices:
To set up Windows XP now, press Enter.
To repair a Windows XP installation using Recovery Console, press R.
To quit ...., press F3.

Press R now.
 
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If windows 7 is still installed and accessible you can change your boot options in there. I don't remember exactly where it is but I changed it on my dual boot setup so it defaults to XP after 7 seconds.

If you have removed the windows 7 drives and want to get rid of the windows 7 boot manager do this.
Boot up into windows XP.
Put your Windows 7 DVD in your optical drive.
Open a command prompt window: start => run => cmd => enter
Now run this command: D:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force (If your DVD drive is not D: change the first D in that command to match your DVD drive letter)
Remove the windows 7 DVD and reboot.
I've done it on my dual boot and it worked.

Windows 7 doesn't use the boot.ini file so trying to edit that won't work.
 
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I get "the device is not ready". (and the drive is closed, tried it when it's spinning, and not).
 
I don't know it it matters but I made a typo Force should be force
try H:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force
 
alphanumeric said:
I don't know it it matters but I made a typo Force should be force
try H:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt52 ALL /force
Click to expand...

Found out I was supposed to do the E drive (have two optical drives, woops). Seemed to do something, will go reboot.

EDIT: Worked like a charm, thanks!
 
If you set things up to display hidden and system files there will be a couple of files left over from the windows 7 boot loader in the root of your XP drive. You can delete Boot.Bak and BootSect.Bak if you want too. There is also a Boot folder that I am sure windows 7 put there but I was never able to delete it. It's not there on this XP only PC.
 
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