dual boot configuration

Because of the curiosity factor involved in seeing how a x64 OS would respond to the digital media apps that I run on my 64bit processor, I decided to install Vista x64 on a spare 40GB PATA drive on my x86 XP SATA setup.
I installed the drive and then ran setup directly from the DVD during startup (I did not boot into XP first.) During setup, in the graphic presentation of the partitions available for installation, I notice that the spare drive (listed in the second column) had some old data on it, so I formatted it and then proceed with the install without incidence.
Upon restart of the machine, after updating some of the drivers, I noticed that I booted directly into Vista without a boot menu showing a choice for a previous windows installation. After another restart to confirm that I had the SATA drive selected as the first boot device in the BIOS, I again went directly into Vista. I then checked the Startup and Recovery settings under the Advanced tab of the System Properties, and noticed that Windows Vista was the only operating system listed. After another restart, I noticed that the installation DVD was still in the drive, prompting me to strike any key for setup, then booting straight into Vista instead of the boot menu or XP. Thinking that the DVD had something to do with the drives being recognized, I ejected it, then restarted and then booted directly to XP. In XP, the Vista installation shows up as my G: drive. In Vista, the XP installation shows up as the D: drive. The drive letter assignments don't bother me. What bothers me is that the bootsector was installed on the wrong drive.
First of all, why would the DVD interrupt the normal boot process like that? Second, how do I get the Vista bootsector installed on the primary boot device, which holds the ntldr/boot.ini files for the XP installation? Can I move the boot folder to that drive? I can't run bootsect.exe from the DVD, because its not a Win32 app. VistaBootPro was no help, either.

Have you tried booting from the dvd and running the Vista startup recovery tool? I havent tried this yet, but you should be able to run bootsetc from the dvd by booting to the recovery options (WinRE) and running a command prompt from there. I am assuiming that vista installed the boot manager to the pata drive because the sata drivers were not installed during Vista setup (there is an option called 'load drivers' at the partitioning screen during setup

"RoboDude" wrote in message

Because of the curiosity factor involved in seeing how a x64 OS would respond to the digital media apps that I run on my 64bit processor, I decided to install Vista x64 on a spare 40GB PATA drive on my x86 XP SATA setup.
I installed the drive and then ran setup directly from the DVD during startup (I did not boot into XP first.) During setup, in the graphic presentation of the partitions available for installation, I notice that the spare drive (listed in the second column) had some old data on it, so I formatted it and then proceed with the install without incidence.
Upon restart of the machine, after updating some of the drivers, I noticed that I booted directly into Vista without a boot menu showing a choice for a previous windows installation. After another restart to confirm that I had the SATA drive selected as the first boot device in the BIOS, I again went directly into Vista. I then checked the Startup and Recovery settings under the Advanced tab of the System Properties, and noticed that Windows Vista was the only operating system listed. After another restart, I noticed that the installation DVD was still in the drive, prompting me to strike any key for setup, then booting straight into Vista instead of the boot menu or XP. Thinking that the DVD had something to do with the drives being recognized, I ejected it, then restarted and then booted directly to XP. In XP, the Vista installation shows up as my G: drive. In Vista, the XP installation shows up as the D: drive. The drive letter assignments don't bother me. What bothers me is that the bootsector was installed on the wrong drive.
First of all, why would the DVD interrupt the normal boot process like that? Second, how do I get the Vista bootsector installed on the primary boot device, which holds the ntldr/boot.ini files for the XP installation? Can I move the boot folder to that drive? I can't run bootsect.exe from the DVD, because its not a Win32 app. VistaBootPro was no help, either.

No I haven't. I will try that.
During setup, the sata drives showed up in the list of drives to install to, though.
"Bones" wrote:

Have you tried booting from the dvd and running the Vista startup recovery tool? I havent tried this yet, but you should be able to run bootsetc from the dvd by booting to the recovery options (WinRE) and running a command prompt from there. I am assuiming that vista installed the boot manager to the pata drive because the sata drivers were not installed during Vista setup (there is an option called 'load drivers' at the partitioning screen during setup

"RoboDude" wrote in message Because of the curiosity factor involved in seeing how a x64 OS would respond to the digital media apps that I run on my 64bit processor, I decided to install Vista x64 on a spare 40GB PATA drive on my x86 XP SATA setup.
I installed the drive and then ran setup directly from the DVD during startup (I did not boot into XP first.) During setup, in the graphic presentation of the partitions available for installation, I notice that the spare drive (listed in the second column) had some old data on it, so I formatted it and then proceed with the install without incidence.
Upon restart of the machine, after updating some of the drivers, I noticed that I booted directly into Vista without a boot menu showing a choice for a previous windows installation. After another restart to confirm that I had the SATA drive selected as the first boot device in the BIOS, I again went directly into Vista. I then checked the Startup and Recovery settings under the Advanced tab of the System Properties, and noticed that Windows Vista was the only operating system listed. After another restart, I noticed that the installation DVD was still in the drive, prompting me to strike any key for setup, then booting straight into Vista instead of the boot menu or XP. Thinking that the DVD had something to do with the drives being recognized, I ejected it, then restarted and then booted directly to XP. In XP, the Vista installation shows up as my G: drive. In Vista, the XP installation shows up as the D: drive. The drive letter assignments don't bother me. What bothers me is that the bootsector was installed on the wrong drive.
First of all, why would the DVD interrupt the normal boot process like that? Second, how do I get the Vista bootsector installed on the primary boot device, which holds the ntldr/boot.ini files for the XP installation? Can I move the boot folder to that drive? I can't run bootsect.exe from the DVD, because its not a Win32 app. VistaBootPro was no help, either.

Robo--
The changing of drive letters is default behavior. To avoid that, boot the DVD from XP and the drive letters will stay the same.
To start Win RE and the System Recovery options including Startup Restore and Complete PC Restore, insert the DVD and on the setup screen on the lower left you'll see a "Systems Recovery" link to link to click. But I'm not sure that any of these options will address your problem.

I'm not sure if using any of the Win RE system recovery options will work or whether you will be able to access it from the DVD setup where "RoboDude" wrote in message

Because of the curiosity factor involved in seeing how a x64 OS would respond to the digital media apps that I run on my 64bit processor, I decided to install Vista x64 on a spare 40GB PATA drive on my x86 XP SATA setup.
I installed the drive and then ran setup directly from the DVD during startup (I did not boot into XP first.) During setup, in the graphic presentation of the partitions available for installation, I notice that the spare drive (listed in the second column) had some old data on it, so I formatted it and then proceed with the install without incidence.
Upon restart of the machine, after updating some of the drivers, I noticed that I booted directly into Vista without a boot menu showing a choice for a previous windows installation. After another restart to confirm that I had the SATA drive selected as the first boot device in the BIOS, I again went directly into Vista. I then checked the Startup and Recovery settings under the Advanced tab of the System Properties, and noticed that Windows Vista was the only operating system listed. After another restart, I noticed that the installation DVD was still in the drive, prompting me to strike any key for setup, then booting straight into Vista instead of the boot menu or XP. Thinking that the DVD had something to do with the drives being recognized, I ejected it, then restarted and then booted directly to XP. In XP, the Vista installation shows up as my G: drive. In Vista, the XP installation shows up as the D: drive. The drive letter assignments don't bother me. What bothers me is that the bootsector was installed on the wrong drive.
First of all, why would the DVD interrupt the normal boot process like that? Second, how do I get the Vista bootsector installed on the primary boot device, which holds the ntldr/boot.ini files for the XP installation? Can I move the boot folder to that drive? I can't run bootsect.exe from the DVD, because its not a Win32 app. VistaBootPro was no help, either.

On Sat, 17 Jun 2006 01:01:01 -0700, RoboDude wrote:

Because of the curiosity factor involved in seeing how a x64 OS would respond to the digital media apps that I run on my 64bit processor, I decided to install Vista x64 on a spare 40GB PATA drive on my x86 XP SATA setup.
I installed the drive and then ran setup directly from the DVD during startup (I did not boot into XP first.) During setup, in the graphic presentation of the partitions available for installation, I notice that the spare drive (listed in the second column) had some old data on it, so I formatted it and then proceed with the install without incidence.
Upon restart of the machine, after updating some of the drivers, I noticed that I booted directly into Vista without a boot menu showing a choice for a previous windows installation. After another restart to confirm that I had the SATA drive selected as the first boot device in the BIOS, I again went directly into Vista. I then checked the Startup and Recovery settings under the Advanced tab of the System Properties, and noticed that Windows Vista was the only operating system listed. After another restart, I noticed that the installation DVD was still in the drive, prompting me to strike any key for setup, then booting straight into Vista instead of the boot menu or XP. Thinking that the DVD had something to do with the drives being recognized, I ejected it, then restarted and then booted directly to XP. In XP, the Vista installation shows up as my G: drive. In Vista, the XP installation shows up as the D: drive. The drive letter assignments don't bother me. What bothers me is that the bootsector was installed on the wrong drive.

You're pretty much at the mercy of how your motherboard BIOS behaves. I have a Biostar K8NHA Grand motherboard that uses a Phoenix-Award BIOS. Whichever disk that I place first under Hard Disk Boot Priority is the one that the BIOS enumerates as the first disk, which makes it the one where Windows setup will put the boot files.
With your motherboard, if there's a PATA disk installed, the BIOS enumerates it as the first disk, regardless of which disk you designate to boot from.

First of all, why would the DVD interrupt the normal boot process like that?

One thing the Windows CD/DVD boot software does is to check the first disk to see if it's bootable. If it determines that the disk is not bootable, it immediately runs Windows setup; in other words, you do not see the "Press any key to boot from the CD/DVD..." prompt. If, on the other hand, the first disk is bootable, you do see the "Press any key to boot from the CD/DVD..." prompt, and if you don't boot from the CD/DVD, then it lets the computer boot from the first disk.

Second, how do I get the Vista bootsector installed on the primary boot device, which holds the ntldr/boot.ini files for the XP installation? Can I move the boot folder to that drive? I can't run bootsect.exe from the DVD, because its not a Win32 app. VistaBootPro was no help, either.