OK, I was installing vista business (reinstallation disk) on to a partition on my primary drive. I use Windows XP MCE. I made a partition to install vista as I've done before. I installed it as I've done before. BUT NOW I CAN"T BOOT IN TO XP!!! It will give me an error which I don't have at the moment, at the bottom of the error it says it may be missing or corrupt. My xp partition is still on my computer but is now my second drive for some reason. I can see all the files and everything. Vista has decided to name make it's partition the main and is now the C drive will the XP is the D drive. I really need help here I no longer have the reinstallation disk for my XP MCE. Please help ma asap. The registration is wacked out so I only have 30 days!
You had xp already installed and added vista later as a dual boot?
That is the recommended method to install, and it usually works.
Do you get the Vista bootloader screen that let's you choose between xp or vista startup?
The only thing I can recommend is for you to use the demo of "paragon justboot corrector" to boot up your computer. Look at your xp system partition and see what the drive letter is, it need's to be c: , otherwise it won't bootup. Sometimes on windows xp, the drive letter is known to get changed.
If possible try and do an image backup of your xp partition that way it is safely stored somewhere. An image backup can usually be restored to a new formatted harddrive.
Important Note: if you removed the vista partition, the xp partition "WILL NOT" bootup, for that to work again you will need the xp installation cd , to do a repair fixboot to get rid of the vista bootloader.
Maybe your lucky and it's a simple drive letter problem, that's a 5 minute fix with the right utilitys. You will need a program that can change drive letters without messing with the MBR, otherwise Then Vista won't bootup.
If it's not a drive letter problem, your problem is still very fixable, I wouldn't do any reinstallations of xp as a next step.
