Dual boot XP and Vista Headaches.

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Dethred

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Jul 30, 2006
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Hey guys,

I built a machine for my friend last year with an ASrock Dual SATA2, 2 320GB HD's, one is a Seagate and one is a WD, and a Samsung SATA DVD drive.

Until I entered "high" under the SATA detection in the bios, neither XP or Vista would detect the second SATA HD or the Optical drive. After adjusting that XP detects both hard disks and the DVD drive, but Vista will not detect the 2nd Hard drive. Once I install Vista on the double partitioned Western digital I can't get it to boot into XP. I am at wit's end, I can't find Hard Drive drivers for Vista, and I don't know what else to check.

1.) How can I change the boot sequence to include XP after instaling Vista x86 Ultimate?
2.) How can I get the second hard drive to be recognized in Vista?

Thanks for any help, I have spent hours searching other forums and google but haven't found a solution.

-Dethred
 
It sounds like a BIOS configuration error. You might want to try setting it all back to defaults. It should be as easy as installing XP to the first drive (leaving drive 2 unformatted), and then installing Vista to the second drive.
 
I found out that the wrong hard drive was selected as primary in the bios, but the hard drive recognition in Vista is still not working.:confused:
 
If you messed up with the harddrives during Vista install and Vista installed as clean install on its own bootsector, it will not include the XP on the other harddrive because it didn't 'exist' during install time for the system.

You should install Vista based on the same bootsector as XP even if you want to use a different hd location for it.
 
It was my understanding that Vista would eat XP if you installed both on the same partition, but what about different partitions on same drive? This is what I tried doing, I put in a new HD by itself on my new system, made 2 partitions. I was planning on putting on Vista on the first partition, and had read that it was easier to install XP first, then Vista, so I installed XP first on the second partition. Booted to that fine for HW testing. Then got around to installing Vista to the first parition, that works fine. Finally tried choosing from the boot manager to boot to the older windows operating system, and I get a message that it's missing HAL.DLL

I've since added 2 more HDs with old data on them, they're just storage drives, no OS on them. I thought I could just boot to the XP and repair the XP install, but when I got to the screen showing me partitions, it listed 3 131xxx MB partitions, it looked like on 2 physical drives I think, and wouldn't give any information as to their format or volume names, so I didn't try the repair since I didn't want to hose anything else.

Since there's nothing on the newish XP install that I have to keep, what would be the easiest way to fix this? If I unplug the other 2 HDs so that I'll know I won't harm them, there's nothing on the first HD that couldn't be copied back, other than I don't want to mess up what work I've put into the Vista partition so far.
 
Well, I did the exact same thing with my machine when I bought Vista Ultimate x64 and it worked fine, I just have to reinstall Vista whenever I reinstall XP pro. So I know it works (at least in my machine) when doing it that way. I am still at a loss.
 
Eh, I'm starting to wonder if I'm going to stick with Vista 64. There's a few apps or drivers here and there that don't quite work on it. There's a few neat things I'm liking about Vista, so I'm not sure if I just want to try going Vista 32 or just get my XP 32 running and make that my main OS for now. It seems like most of the issues I've run into has been more 64-bit support than Vista support.
 
bitgod said:
It was my understanding that Vista would eat XP if you installed both on the same partition, but what about different partitions on same drive? This is what I tried doing, I put in a new HD by itself on my new system, made 2 partitions. I was planning on putting on Vista on the first partition, and had read that it was easier to install XP first, then Vista, so I installed XP first on the second partition. Booted to that fine for HW testing. Then got around to installing Vista to the first parition, that works fine. Finally tried choosing from the boot manager to boot to the older windows operating system, and I get a message that it's missing HAL.DLL

I've since added 2 more HDs with old data on them, they're just storage drives, no OS on them. I thought I could just boot to the XP and repair the XP install, but when I got to the screen showing me partitions, it listed 3 131xxx MB partitions, it looked like on 2 physical drives I think, and wouldn't give any information as to their format or volume names, so I didn't try the repair since I didn't want to hose anything else.
Click to expand...

I may be skipping some things, because you're all over the place, but here goes. First, If you install Vista and XP to the same partition, VIsta will "eat" XP because you're basically doing an upgrade install. Anytime you dual boot, the OSes should always be separate, whether it be separate partitions or drives. Without know what exactly you did with the dual boot, it's hard to explain the error. However, setting up a dual boot is just as easy as it's always been, and it done the same way. Install XP, and leave part of a drive unformatted or a second drive unformatted. Once XP is installed, boot from your Vista DVD, and install it to the unformatted space. When you reboot, you'll have the options to choose either OS.

As for why you were only seeing 131xxx MB partitions, it sounds like for some unknown reason, you're still using a pre-SP1 XP disc. SP2 has been out for a long long time now, and there's no reason not to have every XP disc slipstreamed up to SP2 now. It saves a lot of time and hassle in the long run.
 
Vista will not 'eat' anything unless you point the installation to the same partition of the old windows and do an upgrade install.

The problem here is most likely originating to false bios / hd settings during the Vista install which lead to the situation that Vista installed to a 'clean' hd that was previously used as a logical disk. Therefore this guy now has two bootsectors on two separate hd's. Neither OS exists for the other bootwise.
 
well, I got Vista to load by changing the primary HD in the bios, Both OS'es are on the same HD on different partitions. But it still won't detect the 2nd Hard Drive in Vista, but it still does in XP. Since XP is seeing it, I am wondering if its a problem with Vista, the motherboard, and the SATA drivers.
 
Finn said:
Vista will not 'eat' anything unless you point the installation to the same partition of the old windows and do an upgrade install.
Click to expand...


errrmmmm....

Trying to install to the same partition as an existing Windows OS will have the same end result. The previous OS installation will be effectively 'eaten'.

With an over the top 'upgrade' install it'll be because the previous installation has been 'upgraded' to Vista. If the technique used is instead Vista's 'Custom clean install' it'll be because the previous installation had been rendered unusable and placed into a 'windows.old' folder.

The statement you've objected to was perfectly correct ;)
 
Catweazle said:
errrmmmm....

Trying to install to the same partition as an existing Windows OS will have the same end result. The previous OS installation will be effectively 'eaten'.

With an over the top 'upgrade' install it'll be because the previous installation has been 'upgraded' to Vista. If the technique used is instead Vista's 'Custom clean install' it'll be because the previous installation had been rendered unusable and placed into a 'windows.old' folder.

The statement you've objected to was perfectly correct ;)
Click to expand...

I said Vista will not 'eat' anything unless you do an upgrade install on the same partition. What is your problem with that?
 
I described a further scenario in which the previous Windows install will also be 'eaten'?
 
Finn said:
I said Vista will not 'eat' anything unless you do an upgrade install on the same partition. What is your problem with that?
Click to expand...
If you install Vista to the very same partition as XP is installed, you will no longer be able to boot to XP...only Vista. Hence the term, "eaten".

I'm all for a good discussion/debate, but seriously...now you're taking issue with semantics.
 
For the record, I started my Vista install by putting in the Vista DVD while booted in XP. Vista was the guaranteed to "See" the XP installation and prompted me for a HDD/Partition to install Vista on. Now the Vista bootloader comes up properly every time I turn on the PC.
 
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