I installed XP Pro after 7 RC...problems

J

Jordan1

[H]ard|Gawd
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Or so I thought I was. I know the old OS is suppose to be installed first, but ran across this guide that seemed to prove it was possible the other way around. Now, I am partway through the XP installation, after copying all the files to my partition, reboot to continue the install, now it's telling me "Error Loading Operating System" message after rebooting. I also can't get back into my Windows 7 installation. I tried putting My Windows 7 RC disk in and running the System Recovery/ Startup Repair tool--this finds an issue and appears to fix it, but I get the same error after rebooting.

I'm about to yank the hard drive, put it in another PC, get all of my important data off it, and nuke it aka start over & install XP first. I really don't want to do that. Help!
 
Make sure the partition is still active.
You can use GParted live CD to check. If the partition has "Boot" written on it in GParted it is. If not, right click and "Manage Flags" and set boot.

Now, Win7 repair should say it found problems with startup and give you the option to repair startup and restart.

After you recover Windows 7, consider a virtual machine for XP as an option.
 
That's a very unique situation these days...and maybe I'm too far grown out of the kid stages, but I wouldn't bother setting up a dual boot system with all it's risks and issues, just to play an old game. Besides, from my experience, and from what I've read online, if a game is that old where it won't function on Vista, it's requirements are low enough that it would run just fun in a VM.
 
DeaconFrost said:
...but I wouldn't bother setting up a dual boot system with all it's risks and issues
Click to expand...

If you take the time to understand what it is you're doing, then there are really no risks in creating a dual boot system.

Going forward, Win7/2k8R2 allows itself to be installed to a VHD. That makes for some pretty interesting installation scenarios. If one wanted to try out the OS, they only need to create a big file on their hard drive that is used as a "virtual partition" and install the OS to it. Works rather well.

Don't get me wrong - virtual machines have their place. They're fantastic for running some programs in an isolated space. However, they also have their limitations.
 
Thanks MrF, got my 7 install booting again. Yep, I was hoping to get a older game running in XP Pro: Battlefield Vietnam. There are some sound issues under 7/Vista with that game.
 
Jordan1 said:
Thanks MrF, got my 7 install booting again. Yep, I was hoping to get a older game running in XP Pro: Battlefield Vietnam. There are some sound issues under 7/Vista with that game.
Click to expand...
Do you have another hard drive?
Installing XP on another hard drive, after having given it boot priority in your BIOS, will keep the two OS completely independent.
After XP is installed that way, you enter the BIOS again and give the Win7 drive boot priority.
Now, every time you boot, it will go right to Windows 7.
If you want to play the game, you press F12 during boot and select your XP drive to boot when the motherboard device boot selection menu comes up.
 
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