Dual booting XP with Vista, Vista Installed first

[WoWchamp]

I want to dual boot windows vista and windows xp. I installed windows vista first a few days ago and got everything set up. All the product updates, a few programs installed and all the drivers I needed.

I found this guide a while back to dual boot windows vista with windows xp on apc.com. Basically this is what it says to do: (it assumes vista is already installed on a partition that takes up 100% of the hard drive)

Shrink the Vista partition down to make room for XP
Install windows xp like normal
Boot off of windows vista install DVD to fix vista MBR
Install and run EasyBCD once back in vista to add XP to the vista boot manager

This is what I tried doing:

I partitioned off my 320 GB HDD into two 150 GB partitions (base 10 vs base 2 thing...)
Installed Vista on the first 150GB partition which was C:
Then I tried install windows XP
Put the XP install disk in my computer (one that I know works, I've used it a lot before)
Setup copied install files on D: and then rebooted
Upon restarting the computer gives me a disk read error press CTRL+ALT+DEL to restart which the guide said might happen and then to just use the Vista DVD to fix the MBR (Repair installation) and then use EasyBCD to add the XP entry into the Vista boot loader. So thats exactly what I did.

However when I reboot the machine I get no vista boot loader of any kind, it simply just restarts in windows vista and thats that. Every time I try and reinstall XP it does the same thing over and over I tried 3 times with no luck.

When I go back into vista and check EasyBCD this is what it gives me under "view settings"

There are a total of 2 entries listed in the Vista Bootloader.
Bootloader Timeout: 30 seconds.
Default OS: Microsoft Windows Vista

Entry #1

Name: Microsoft Windows Vista
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
Windows Directory: \Windows

Entry #2

Name: Windows XP PRO
BCD ID: {83fc0dae-bbef-11dc-82e5-000129d4b97a}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \NTLDR

This is what it gives me by default. I didn't change anything in the settings of EasyBCD except add the XP entry to the Vista boot loader (which is D: but it shows as C: in the view settings thing?)

So basically I'm not getting any vista boot loader to come up at all, even after doing essentially exactly what I should do to make this work. Every time I try and put XP on it corrupts the boot sector and gives me a disk read error and repairing the vista boot loader and adding XP to it doesn't give me any kind of access to any boot loader at all.

 

[brihay]

Well, I have a chain bootloader with Vista Ult., XP Pro, and Linux. Bootloaders are very moody and can give you a headache. I have recently had trouble with mine and I will tell you what I did.
I had to remove Vista, the only way I could get things to work is to partition both NTFS, and then install XP FIRST. I tried and tried, and I don't know why, but it just wont work. After XP was fully installed with all updates and drivers, then install Vista.
The BCD is nice to adjust things when they are already there. But wont help you if the boot loader isn't there.
The only other thing you can try is to use the XP disk, recovery console, then into VISTA, when you have the terminal or console up, do the fixmbr, and fixboot. I doubt that will work, but might be worth it since you will have to clear everything and start over.
what I would do is:
zero fill your drive, with a disk eraser, or your hard drive manufacturer diagnosis iso disk.
set up the partitions like you did under XP install
Install XP
Install Vista
Give that a try. Have a good one.