partition help

marshey · Post by **marshey** » 20 Feb 2007, 11:24

Ive just installed windows xp media edition on a second partition and when ever i restart my pc it automaticaly loads it but how would i make it so at boot it gives me a choice of the 2 partitions to load? also i have no drivers which means i cant do hardly anything which makes me not be able to connect to internet which i need to do to get the drivers what shall i do?
Thank you for those that help me.

Post by **bad_brain** » 20 Feb 2007, 12:01

um, what OS is on the 2nd partition?

marshey · Post by **marshey** » 20 Feb 2007, 12:28

i got vista ultimate on partition 1 and windows media on partition 2

marshey · Post by **marshey** » 20 Feb 2007, 12:49

i was also wundering if as i got lots of drivers missing on windows media if as i can acess the c: which the vista partition is on if i can just copy the driver folder on vista and paste it in the windows media driver folder?

Post by **alien100** » 20 Feb 2007, 13:22

ok boot into windows media edition >right click on my computer>properties>click on the advanced tab>startup and recovery settings>a new window will appear>Make sure Time to display list of operating systems is ticked and set to atleast 30 seconds and same with the one bellow it heres a pic>>http://img355.imageshack.us/img355/317/pic1yt3.jpg<<

marshey · Post by **marshey** » 21 Feb 2007, 10:13

it was already on them settings and it made no difference. i have now deleted partition 2 which had windows media on so i just have partition 1 with vista on, but now every time i start my pc it goes to a black screen straight after the bios has loaded and stay like that. anyone know what i should do?

Post by **bad_brain** » 21 Feb 2007, 10:40

eww...sounds not good, the problem is that I have not enough experience with Vista to give a specific advice...

what I would do is th format the whole drive, put XP on partition 1 and Vista on 2 (best would be to put it on an extra HDD imo...because Vista is for me not a stable OS, it's beta and should be used for testing only until SP1 is released).

if there are any important files you need to retrieve from the HDD use a Linux live distribution (I recommend Damn Small Linux), mount the partition and copy the files to a USB stick or floppy.

marshey · Post by **marshey** » 21 Feb 2007, 10:49

but if i reformat it then instal xp im going to stil hav the problem i had before with no drivers and i wont be able to get them either because i need the driver to connect to internet and the driver to connect a usb device and i have no floppy drive and i cant burn discs.

Post by **bad_brain** » 21 Feb 2007, 10:56

um, are you using the XP CD with which you had the problems with the bluescreen?

marshey · Post by **marshey** » 21 Feb 2007, 10:59

na im using a different copy which actully lets me install it without problems

marshey · Post by **marshey** » 21 Feb 2007, 11:02

i was just thinking is it possible to make a batch file or something which makes it boot the other partition at startup, because then i could get on the vista one then download the drivers for the xp partition?

Post by **bad_brain** » 21 Feb 2007, 11:07

ah,ok....so the main problem is to get the drivers, right?
well, you can either get the drivers with another PC and then transfer them through the network card or if you can get online with Vista you dl the files there, reboot into XP and install the dirvers. if you can't get online to get the drivers with neither Vista nor XP you can try it with Damn Small Linux.

Post by **bad_brain** » 21 Feb 2007, 11:09

hm, when you have XP and Vista installed isn't there a boot menu where you can pick which OS you want to boot?

marshey · Post by **marshey** » 21 Feb 2007, 11:12

nope it automatily goes straight into xp, thats the main problem because if i could choose which one i could go into vista and get drivers for xp. is there a way of making it so i can pick which OS?

Post by **bad_brain** » 21 Feb 2007, 11:20

oh....this means you installed Vista first and then XP, right?
because then this is what most likely happened: the XP bootloader overwrote the Vista one, and that's why you can't access Vista and XP is loaded automatically. I've googled a little and people say the Vista bootloader recognizes XP, so simply first install XP on the 1st partition and then Vista on the 2nd one....then the Vista bootloader will overwrite the XP bootloader and you should be able to chose between XP and Vista in the boot menu...