ActiveSync ruined my dual-boot - how to restore Vista boot order?

My configuration was this -
Disk1 contained XP Pro, Disk2 contained Vista 64 Ultimate. I had it
dual-booting, where BIOS booted off Disk1. I am not sure if this was the way
things were meant to be because I had to install XP first before I installed
Vista, or what. So whatever it was doing, the boot file on the XP disk was
what caused it to ask me each startup whether or not I wanted to boot Vista
or XP, with Vista being the default if I chose nothing after 30 seconds.

So, last night I finally got my new smartphone, and when I found out
ActiveSync doesn't like Vista, I figured - hey, why not, I'll go install it
on XP and run it from there. Big mistake, as apparently ActiveSync messes
with the boot file on XP. Why? I don't know. I just know that when I
restarted, I got a nice, big fat boot failure error. This happens whether or
not I attempt to boot from Disk1 or Disk2.

So alright, I figure, I'll take my handy Installation disk and repair the
boot file. If I load Windows Vista on the CDROM with my normal configuration
- that is, with BIOS booting from Disk1 - while I can see my Vista
installation from the repair window, it does not detect any errors with the
boot file. If I load it with BIOS attempting to boot from Disk2, which has
the Vista installation on it, it does not detect ANY Vista installation at
all.

Now, I am really not that bothered about losing my XP installation - I
thought I would run into more problems when I originally set this
configuration up, but insofar, I've enjoyed Vista, and the deal with
ActiveSync is the first time I've needed to even load XP since I first set
everything up. So at this point, if I could repair Vista to load on it's
own, that'd be grand. But I really do NOT want to lose my Vista installation
unless it is last case scenario.

The problem is, though, as I said - I can't detect the installation when I
attempt to repair, or if it does detect, then it says it doesn't need to be
repaired. This is a big lie!

SO, my question at this point is - can I repair the boot file when I have my
Vista installation slaved up to a working computer (by simply replacing files
on the disk)? If so, what do I need to do?

On Thu, 28 Feb 2008 10:41:02 -0800, lawless314
<lawless314@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote:

>My configuration was this -
>Disk1 contained XP Pro, Disk2 contained Vista 64 Ultimate. I had it
>dual-booting, where BIOS booted off Disk1. I am not sure if this was the way
>things were meant to be because I had to install XP first before I installed
>Vista, or what. So whatever it was doing, the boot file on the XP disk was
>what caused it to ask me each startup whether or not I wanted to boot Vista
>or XP, with Vista being the default if I chose nothing after 30 seconds.
>
>So, last night I finally got my new smartphone, and when I found out
>ActiveSync doesn't like Vista, I figured - hey, why not, I'll go install it
>on XP and run it from there. Big mistake, as apparently ActiveSync messes
>with the boot file on XP. Why? I don't know. I just know that when I
>restarted, I got a nice, big fat boot failure error. This happens whether or
>not I attempt to boot from Disk1 or Disk2.

When booting from Disk1, what specific error message do you get?

Disk2 in its current state is not bootable, since dual boot has boot
files for both XP and Vista on Disk1.

>
>So alright, I figure, I'll take my handy Installation disk and repair the
>boot file. If I load Windows Vista on the CDROM with my normal configuration
>- that is, with BIOS booting from Disk1 - while I can see my Vista
>installation from the repair window, it does not detect any errors with the
>boot file. If I load it with BIOS attempting to boot from Disk2, which has
>the Vista installation on it, it does not detect ANY Vista installation at
>all.
>
>Now, I am really not that bothered about losing my XP installation - I
>thought I would run into more problems when I originally set this
>configuration up, but insofar, I've enjoyed Vista, and the deal with
>ActiveSync is the first time I've needed to even load XP since I first set
>everything up. So at this point, if I could repair Vista to load on it's
>own, that'd be grand. But I really do NOT want to lose my Vista installation
>unless it is last case scenario.
>
>The problem is, though, as I said - I can't detect the installation when I
>attempt to repair, or if it does detect, then it says it doesn't need to be
>repaired. This is a big lie!
>
>SO, my question at this point is - can I repair the boot file when I have my
>Vista installation slaved up to a working computer (by simply replacing files
>on the disk)? If so, what do I need to do?

It's not clear what the specific problem is, so what you can do is
just recreate the Vista BCD by running bootrec from the Vista DVD (see
<http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;927392>).
Run the commands bootrec /rebuildbcd, followed by bootrec /fixboot.