(warning) Installing with other disk with system plugged in=BAD

[Octopuss]

So I managed to screw up my main disk while playing with Vista. Partially my fault, but who the hell would expect...

I plugged in another disk, started installing and chose the new drive as destination. It installed fine, EXCEPT for the hiden fact that the stupid installed totally changed the boot area on my main disk where XP is installed. I later booted back and was like WTF are these folders, what's this 2GB of data? Deleted it and couldn't boot since. Awgh. Later I realized what most probably happened was Vista overwriting the boot manager or whatever it is with its own, which can't be reverted back, or at least I got no means to do so.

Why on earth does Vista even touch drives it's not being told to?

[Tripredacus]

THe boot manager isn't something you can see in/as a folder. So did Vista actually get installed on the same partition as XP? If not, you can edit your BCD so you can dual boot or use a different bootloader.

[jaclaz]

Well, this time it's (maybe first time) NOT Vista's fault.

I mean a poor OS has to put it's bootfiles somewhere, and has to put them on the boot drive, and to be more exact on the first active primary partition of first drive.

Most probably you can "revive" your previous operating system, (I am guessing it is 2K/XP/2003) by simply restoring the appropriate bootsector invoking NTLDR.

This can be done with the utility fixboot from a XP Recovery Console (booted from original install CD) or from Vista, in this case you need to use bootsect.exe /nt52 All.

The above of course only if you did not alter somehow disk order or deleted files belonging to your previous OS install.

Do read here:

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/

and this particularly:

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/installing.html

If you cannot boot any of the above, you can make yourself a WIndows NT boot floppy, just to start the PC, along these lines:

http://www.xxcopy.com/xxcopy33.htm

If you have problems in doing so, download grub4dos 0.4.2 from here:

http://grub4dos.jot.com/WikiHome

http://grub4dos.jot.com/WikiHome/grub_for_dos-0.4.2.zip?

and create a floppy from fat12grldr.img

jaclaz

[Octopuss]

In the end I just reinstalled the whole system. Didn't even take too long. Lesson learned.

THe boot manager isn't something you can see in/as a folder. So did Vista actually get installed on the same partition as XP? If not, you can edit your BCD so you can dual boot or use a different bootloader.

It did install on correct disk and partition. But it added crapload of files on the other disk's 1st partition.

What does BCD stand for?

No idea what bootloader is either. I am not into these things really.

All I can shout in anger is "Vista blows!" and it's true. No matter where I tell it to install it shouldn't touch any other place. Period.

P.S. What does "invoking NTLDR" mean?

[Tripredacus]

What does BCD stand for?

No idea what bootloader is either. I am not into these things really.

P.S. What does "invoking NTLDR" mean?

1. BCD is how Vista handles booting. In previous versions (like XP or 98) there was a file called boot.ini which informed which partition the operating system was on. You could easily modify this file to add additional operating systems, and then when you booted it would give you a menu (like the menu you see if you try to go to safe mode) and you could choose which operating system you wanted to load. The BCD is just a different method of doing the same thing, but it has more options that you could possibly use that you can't do with just a boot.ini. If you look in the unattended Vista forum, you will find posts about how to use the BCD. I haven't gotten my head around it yet, so I couldn't give you instructions myself.

2. A bootloader is simply a set of instructions for the computer so that it knows what to do after it goes through the BIOS and POST process when you turn it on. The bootloader reads the information in the boot.ini or BCD (or if you aren't using Windows it looks at other files or data) and sees where the operating system is and loads that up. The bootloader isn't a program that you can see like the boot.ini, it is written to a hidden section on the hard-drive called the Master Boot Record, or in another hidden sector or track on the disk. I used this term because XP uses a different bootloader than Vista does.

3. NTLDR is the program within Windows that starts the process of it loading up. For example, Windows doesn't just put up a progress bar and then load the desktop. It does other things like put files in memory, figure out which drivers it needs to load, etc. Invoking NTLDR simply means that the bootloader needs to start Windows up. You may have seen the error "NTLDR is missing" which referrs to that program.

[jaclaz]

Well, the idea of giving links is that people should actually read them , here:

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/

you can find some very clear details on how NT/2K/XP/2003 boot and how Vista does:

http://www.multibooters.co.uk/multiboot.html

(even if you don't read the text, just looking at the pictures should explain what "bootsector invoking NTLDR" means )

jaclaz