Bootloader not installed

[T D]

My problem is that some sort of bootloader for windows was not installed, so I can't multiboot w/my copy of xp. I have used up all 4 primary partitions, one is vista (50gb)(ntfs), other winxp(50gb)(fat32), other my documents (20gb - yes I have a big my documents folder )(fat32) and other stuff, last, paging files and temp files (10gb)(fat32).

Can anyone help? Thx.

[fizban2]

the boot manager for vista should have loaded when you installed vista, you can check by running the command prompt from an elevated status (right click runas admin) and do BCEdit, check out MS webpage for more info on the commands

[T D]

Can you give a link to the ms bcdedit page? One that is understandable.

Edited July 12, 2006 by T D

[Biohead]

It wll have installed, otherwise you wouldn't be able to load Vista. Either it's not detected your XP install (Maybe because its a FAT32 disk?) or you've overwritten some files on your XP partition.

What I would do is use the recovery console and use "fixboot" and "fixmbr" to get back into XP, then reinstall Vista.

[T D]

Ah. A FAT32 disk.

D.a.m.n.

I kept is as FAT32 so if anything went wrong, I could install win 98 and copy important files before formatting.

Thanks for the answer Biohead and fizban2 for that small step into understanding the complicatedness of vista.

Edited July 13, 2006 by T D

[T D]

It still doesn't work after converting my fat32 to ntfs via convert.exe

When opening bcdedit /enum all, the "windows legacy os loader" points to <partition>\ntldr instead of <partition>\ntldr.sys

I know it needs file extensions as Windows memory tester points to memtest.exe, w/the exe extension.

How do I change this?

Ths

[jaclaz]

I know it needs file extensions as Windows memory tester points to memtest.exe, w/the exe extension.

ntldr has not an extension, memtest.exe has one.

the \ntldr is correct, see this screenshot, the problem must be elsewhere.

http://pointerx.net/blogs/glozano/archive/.../05/09/282.aspx

Try booting from a floppy, built along the lines of here:

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

Then make sure that a copy of XP ntldr is in the root of the drive.

jaclaz