need help for dual boot system

[Maverick_83]

Got a dual boot system, Windows XP & 8.1. Each of the OS on separate drives. Recently, the XP partition crashed.

The good news, have a clone of the drive. The bad news, the clone was made BEFORE I installed Windows 8, thus the old XP drive can't see the Windows 8 installation. Any way to fix our mod the boot records to allow booting into Win 8?

 

[tuckloong]

Got a dual boot system, Windows XP & 8.1. Each of the OS on separate drives. Recently, the XP partition crashed.

The good news, have a clone of the drive. The bad news, the clone was made BEFORE I installed Windows 8, thus the old XP drive can't see the Windows 8 installation. Any way to fix our mod the boot records to allow booting into Win 8?

Try Easy BCD?
EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies

 

[wtfh4x]

Try Easy BCD?
EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies

2nd this, boot into the XP partition and install. Then go to the boot options in the software and press repair bootloader or MBR something like that. Can't remember cos haven't used it in a while but its quite simple.

 

[Maverick_83]

Try Easy BCD?
EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies

2nd this, boot into the XP partition and install. Then go to the boot options in the software and press repair bootloader or MBR something like that. Can't remember cos haven't used it in a while but its quite simple.

Hi again guys, thanks for the response!
UPDATE 3/2/14: So I've cloned my XP partition into a Plextor M5S, installed EasyBCD and attempted to fix the bootloader. Got new problems, can't seem to get the Windows 8 bootloader to show and I get a "invalid boot.ini, booting from c:\windows" error, XP boots fine though.

Any ideas?

 

[tuckloong]

Hi again guys, thanks for the response!
UPDATE 3/2/14: So I've cloned my XP partition into a Plextor M5S, installed EasyBCD and attempted to fix the bootloader. Got new problems, can't seem to get the Windows 8 bootloader to show and I get a "invalid boot.ini, booting from c:\windows" error, XP boots fine though.

Any ideas?

can boot into win 8? can install Easy BCD and detect XP there its easier

 

[Maverick_83]

can boot into win 8? can install Easy BCD and detect XP there its easier

Unfortunately not, the bootloader doesn't even pop up...

 

[Maverick_83]

Update 6/2/14: Attempted to use recovery console in XP DVD to repair boot records, keep giving me errors and ask to run CHKDSK. Tried the bootcfg /repair in Windows 8 DVD - "Element not found"...

What's even stranger is my Windows installation is identified to be in E drive.

Running out of ideas

 

[Mythmaker]

XP? I thought don't need use easybcd. Just edit directly in msconfig can liao. Only vista and above a lot more complex to edit the MBR.

 

[Maverick_83]

XP? I thought don't need use easybcd. Just edit directly in msconfig can liao. Only vista and above a lot more complex to edit the MBR.

Yeah you see, that's the problem... XP and Vista/7/8 boot records are so different therefore I'm still wrapping my head around the issue since this is dual boot.

 

[muddle]

i had a similar issue a year back. dual booted win7 and win8. but i guess mine was due to ignorance and complacency. i deleted the win7 partition when i was in win8. next reboot and bammm i was in a world of bootloader pain. in the end, frustration won and i unplugged other hdd, leaving only the ssd for win7 installation. that was the only solution that worked.

 

[ahwei91]

Use Visual BCD ...... run dual boot repair, automatic repair ......

 

[wtfh4x]

Let's be very sure of one thing. You WANT the Win 8 bootloader, because the XP bootloader cannot detect Win 8. So you cannot touch the XP bootloader because it will be pointless.

So overwrite the XP bootloader with the Win 8 bootloader.
Try this: Windows 8 Boot Issues? Try Fixing the Master Boot Record (MBR) or Boot Configuration Data (BCD) - TechSpot

These four steps once you boot into the command prompt from Win 8 disk.
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Once you can boot into Windows 8, then install EasyBCD, add a new entry for XP and it should be alright from there.
This always worked for me when I was dual-booting XP and 7 long ago. Either that or EasyBCD always worked. Just remember you always want the newer bootloader, ie to save all the headache in new installs, install the older OS first then the newer one. It will overwrite the old bootloader and detect the old OS by default.

 

[Maverick_83]

Use Visual BCD ...... run dual boot repair, automatic repair ......

Automatic Repair gives "Windows 7/VISTA NOT FOUND on any mapped drive. Automatic Repair NOT possible."

Looks like it can't even see Windows 8. Okay... let's try the next solution.

Let's be very sure of one thing. You WANT the Win 8 bootloader, because the XP bootloader cannot detect Win 8. So you cannot touch the XP bootloader because it will be pointless.

So overwrite the XP bootloader with the Win 8 bootloader.
Try this: Windows 8 Boot Issues? Try Fixing the Master Boot Record (MBR) or Boot Configuration Data (BCD) - TechSpot

These four steps once you boot into the command prompt from Win 8 disk.
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Once you can boot into Windows 8, then install EasyBCD, add a new entry for XP and it should be alright from there.
This always worked for me when I was dual-booting XP and 7 long ago. Either that or EasyBCD always worked. Just remember you always want the newer bootloader, ie to save all the headache in new installs, install the older OS first then the newer one. It will overwrite the old bootloader and detect the old OS by default.

Just tried, /fixmbr completed successfully, /scanos detected my Win 8 installation, but /fixboot & /rebuildbcd gives me a "Element not found" error. No boot loader at startup still.

 

[Maverick_83]

UPDATE 10/2/2014:

Multiple attempts at the various steps/help provided by everyone here throws up small road-blocks. Windows 8's Automatic repair will attempt to diagnose, repair and then restarts, not sure if it's really doing anything useful.

wtfh4x, your solution seems the most sound. However, during my attempts, although /fixmbr completed successfully & /scanos was able to detect my Win 8 installation, /fixboot & /rebuildbcd gives me a "Element not found" error. Is there a missing file somewhere or could my tinkering with EasyBCD in Windows XP have borked something inside my MBR?

Here's what my BCD settings look like in Easy BCD:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device boot
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-US
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default {91ab3950-9230-11e3-9c1f-647002164d9d}
resumeobject {1f8184a2-14de-11df-9734-f08c6d8c50b0}
displayorder {91ab3950-9230-11e3-9c1f-647002164d9d}
{91ab3952-9230-11e3-9c1f-647002164d9d}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 10

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {91ab3950-9230-11e3-9c1f-647002164d9d}
device partition=H:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 8.1
locale en-US
osdevice partition=H:
systemroot \Windows

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {91ab3952-9230-11e3-9c1f-647002164d9d}
device partition=C:
path \NST\ntldr
description Windows XP

A couple of things to note, Windows XP sees itself as C: & the Win 8.1 drive as H: as I installed Win 8 long after I've added other hard drives into the system. When I was booted into Windows 8.1 (before this whole fiasco started), it saw itself as C: and XP as D:.

 

[Maverick_83]

UPDATE 11/2/2014:

Finally a little progress, I deleted the Windows 8.1 entry via EasyBCD (in XP) since I suspect that the way EasyBCD wrote the boot entry may have been wonky.

Re-attempted wtfh4x's 4-step solution again, this time completed successfully! Detected Windows 8.1 Pro with Media Centre and can be seen in the boot menu when I click choose Operating system in the Windows 8 recovery mode. Thus, I restarted...

but, the Windows 8 boot menu still doesn't pop up?! And booted straight into XP still.

Am I missing something? Should I delete something in my MBR?


UPDATE 4:45 PM:

Went all thermo-nuclear and wiped all boot entries in EasyBCD, re-re-attempted the 4-step bootrec commands. And now I'm booted into Windows 8.1 proper! Used EasyBCD (in Win 8.1 this time) to add the XP entry, and now all is good. Thanks for all the help guys!

Turns out that all of the bloody roadblocks I encountered were a result of EasyBCD's borked entries to the Windows bootloader, which confused the hell out of the Windows 8 Recovery Utility. Seems that using EasyBCD in Windows XP was a bad, bad idea!

Ups for awareness!!