I'll start with what I'm trying to get done, and then what's going wrong. I'm looking to Dual Boot with Windows 7 and XP, while having 7 installed first. I have two SATA HDD's, one is a 1TB, and the other is a 640GB. I'll refer to the drives by their size from now on, to avoid confusion. I originally used
this guide to help me install this.
Originally, I wanted to leave my 640GB as a backup drive, so I partitioned the 1TB into two halves, leaving Windows 7 on one. I installed XP to the second partition, and kept running into errors. Boot MGR missing, ntoskrnl.exe missing, etc. The only way I was able to get around that, after several startup repairs, was the oddest procedure. I would tell the system to boot from my Windows 7 OS disc, and then ignore the "press any key to boot to CD" prompt, which would then prompt me to choose what OS I wanted to boot into. If I didn't do that, it just got stuck at whichever "____ is missing" screen it decided too.
Okay, so got fed up with trying that configuration, as I had a feeling my boot files were being put on wrong partitions, or whatever was going wrong. Imaged back to my clone I made right before this whole mess. So I decided to do it what I considered a slightly easier configuration. Keep Windows 7 on the 1TB, and partition the backup 640GB drive to have XP and my backup drive. I was able to install XP no problem, get .net Framework installed, downloaded EasyBCD. I was prompted with the "Windows 7 BCD cannot be found" prompt, and wasn't able to edit the BCD in XP. So after a few startup repairs, was able to get into Windows 7, install EasyBCD, add the XP menu option, and check out the settings. I noticed my NST folder was pointed to the backup partition on the 640GB, so I moved the folder to the right partition, and used EasyBCD to tell it where it was. Then I restart, and am prompted by the BOOTMGR is missing. I disconnected the 640GB, booted into the Windows 7 disc, and I've tried 3 start up repairs, and then a manual repair via command prompt and /FixMBR, /FixBoot, /RebuildBCD, with a restart in between each. I shutdown after the final try, reconnect the XP drive, boot up, and hello BOOTMGR missing.
Where am I going wrong? As of right now, I can't get into either OS. I have hands on all installation discs, as well as another computer if need be.
Thanks ahead!
Edit:
Almost forgot, I do have BIOS set to boot from the 1TB first out of all devices. And as of right now, I got the boot loader menu showing, allowing me the option to choose which OS it boots into. But I have a feeling BOOTMGR is going to go missing anytime now. So let's keep addressing this as it's not fixed. Ill update again if I fixed it myself! Thanks!