Hope this is the appropriate forum for this thread...I have a relatively dire situation that I don't know how to resolve, with Windows Vista 32-bit. I've had a few minor problems witht he OS, one in particular which has led me to want XP on as a dual boot.
Instead of putting XP on a separate partition, I just bought a second drive and decided to put XP on that second drive for when I wanted to use XP. Well, I had both drives installed (and working), so I booted off my XP CD and went to start the XP installation. I made VERY sure that I chose the WD drive (not the Seagate) that was empty to install XP onto. I did not choose the format option, since the drive was already formatted prior using NTFS file format.
Everything seemed to be going ok, then it had to reboot the system. But, upon reboot, I got the (apparently) dreaded "Cannot find operating system" message :O So, I unplugged the Vista drive and made sure the BIOS was set appropriately. Still no OS found.
Here's the issue: I unplugged the new/XP drive and put my Vista drive back in, verified BIOS was set correctly AND STILL NO OS FOUND!!! :O
So, since then, I put the XP drive back (disconnected the Vista drive) and installed XP again, this time formatting the drive. That worked fine. I eventually got everything up and running, with all the updates. XP seems to be working great.
But, my Vista drive will not boot. I'm sort of at the point where I really wouldn't care if it weren't for all the programs I have installed...and emails I don't know how to retrieve. So, I'd really like to get it running again.
I fear the XP install may have corrupted the boot Vista boot sector (or something like that). I'm not really sure what happened, because I know I did not choose the Vista drive. All the files on the Vista drive are still there...It's just that the drive won't boot Vista.
So far, I tried booting off the Vista CD and choosing the repair option, but that didn't work. But, now I'm out of ideas...
So, I need help 😀 Any ideas on how to fix this Vista install without destroying the programs/files I have on the drive?
Instead of putting XP on a separate partition, I just bought a second drive and decided to put XP on that second drive for when I wanted to use XP. Well, I had both drives installed (and working), so I booted off my XP CD and went to start the XP installation. I made VERY sure that I chose the WD drive (not the Seagate) that was empty to install XP onto. I did not choose the format option, since the drive was already formatted prior using NTFS file format.
Everything seemed to be going ok, then it had to reboot the system. But, upon reboot, I got the (apparently) dreaded "Cannot find operating system" message :O So, I unplugged the Vista drive and made sure the BIOS was set appropriately. Still no OS found.
Here's the issue: I unplugged the new/XP drive and put my Vista drive back in, verified BIOS was set correctly AND STILL NO OS FOUND!!! :O
So, since then, I put the XP drive back (disconnected the Vista drive) and installed XP again, this time formatting the drive. That worked fine. I eventually got everything up and running, with all the updates. XP seems to be working great.
But, my Vista drive will not boot. I'm sort of at the point where I really wouldn't care if it weren't for all the programs I have installed...and emails I don't know how to retrieve. So, I'd really like to get it running again.
I fear the XP install may have corrupted the boot Vista boot sector (or something like that). I'm not really sure what happened, because I know I did not choose the Vista drive. All the files on the Vista drive are still there...It's just that the drive won't boot Vista.
So far, I tried booting off the Vista CD and choosing the repair option, but that didn't work. But, now I'm out of ideas...
So, I need help 😀 Any ideas on how to fix this Vista install without destroying the programs/files I have on the drive?
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