Dual Boot with Windows Vista and XP

[SIXAXIS]

Hi guys,

Here is the story, I had Windows Vista installed and then I partitioned the HDD. I installed XP and used the Vista DVD to allow me to boot up in Vista. I installed VistaBootPRO and added Windows XP to my bootloader. When I try to go into XP, it gives me an error and the only thing I can do is restart or go back to the bootloader to choose Vista.

The error is saying that the file "ntldr" cannot be found. I checked VistaBootPRO and found out that it did not set the bootloader right. Is there a way I can just uninstall the Vista bootloader and use GRUB? The file was NTLDR, and it is looking for it in D:/ntldr. I don't know if that is the correct spot for it and I don't know if the drive letter is right because from Vista, hte XP partition is D, and from XP, the XP partition is E.

This is what VistaBootPRO is telling me for the BCD Registry:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier			  {bootmgr}
device				  unknown
default				 {current}
displayorder			{current}
						{ntldr}
timeout				 20

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier			  {6c93c258-1ed8-11dd-adb6-fc8cb0ce8a02}
device				  unknown
path					\Windows\system32\winload.exe
description			 Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (recovered) 
osdevice				unknown
systemroot			  \Windows
resumeobject			{f24c9e93-1eb8-11dd-99ad-806e6f6e6963}

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier			  {current}
device				  partition=C:
path					\Windows\system32\winload.exe
description			 Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium
osdevice				partition=C:
systemroot			  \Windows
resumeobject			{6f85d722-2558-11dd-9ef9-806e6f6e6963}

Resume from Hibernate
---------------------
identifier			  {6f85d722-2558-11dd-9ef9-806e6f6e6963}
device				  partition=C:
path					\Windows\system32\winresume.exe
description			 Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (recovered) 
inherit				 {resumeloadersettings}
filedevice			  partition=C:
filepath				\hiberfil.sys
debugoptionenabled	  No

Resume from Hibernate
---------------------
identifier			  {f24c9e93-1eb8-11dd-99ad-806e6f6e6963}
device				  unknown
path					\Windows\system32\winresume.exe
description			 Windows Vista (TM) Home Premium (recovered) 
inherit				 {resumeloadersettings}
filedevice			  unknown
filepath				\hiberfil.sys
debugoptionenabled	  No

Windows Memory Tester
---------------------
identifier			  {memdiag}
device				  unknown
path					\boot\memtest.exe
description			 Windows Memory Diagnostic

Windows Legacy OS Loader
------------------------
identifier			  {ntldr}
device				  partition=D:
path					\ntldr
description			 Windows XP

Thanks in advance.

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

The "normal" way of installing different Windows versions is to install the earlier version first, and the later version later. This will automatically update the boot manager so that you will be able to correctly multiboot. If you upset this sequence, you will have to configure the boot manager correctly.

Now I don't know the Vista boot manager, so I can't help you with that (but it is documented in detail on the Microsoft website).

As for the partitions, what kind of partitions are they: primary, hidden, ...? Naturally they must have the same drive letters in all systems, otherwise the boot manager cannot work.