Help! Dual boot problems on my VGN AR61M

[MdeBont]

Hi guys,

First, sorry for my poor English. I'm running into some problems when I try to dual boot my Vaio VGN AR61M laptop. Vista is pre-installed and I think it's a great OS, but I would like a XP partition too, for use as an Music production system (XP is much faster then Vista).

I've read alot about dual booting, and at first sight everything went ok. I've slipstreamed the SATA drivers on a XP cd, made a new partition as NTFS, and downloaded the Vista boot software. But here is the problem i'm encountering;

When I install XP on my new partition (Drive D:, a 70 GB partition), everything goes ok. When Xp restarts for the first time after the install (it restarts automaticly) it still goes ok. Then I install the Vista boot software, choose to uninstall the legacy boot software, and after running the diagnostic programm I indeed have a option to load XP or Vista. When I reboot again, I do get the boot screen, but if I choose XP, I get a message saying the NTLDR is missing (status OCX000000E). Thank God my Vista boot still works, so I have read more about the missing NTLDR, but nothing seems to work for me. I have tried to copy the mssing file and netdetect.com to the XP partition, I have tried fixboot and fixMBR, I have tried to make a boot disk, I have tried to reinstall XP but I still get the same error...

I believe I don't have the right SATA driver. A lot of people on forums advise me to buy a USB floppy drive (I don't have one build in), copy the drivers to a floppy and install them with F6 when XP asks for it. But the problem is, the driver i'm finding is over 6MB (and it's a .exe file), and that is way to much to get on a floppy... Reason enough for me to think that I'm working with the wrong driver, and XP just doesn't recognize the partition.

Is there anybody here who can help me with a link to the right SATA driver for my laptop? I really would appreciate any help, cause it's driving me crazy (I've been working on this for 3 nights already). I believe my chipset is important to get the right driver, so here is the info after using the Intel tool to indentify chipsets:

Chipset

Detected Chipset:
Intel(R) GM965 Express Chipset

Chipset Components

Memory Controller:
82GM965

I/O Controller:
Intel(R) 82801HBM/HEM I/O controller hub (ICH8M) SATA Controller found in AHCI mode

Integrated Graphics:
Intel(R) 965GM Graphics And Memory Controller Hub(GMCH)

Thanks in advance for the help! I really hope I can get this thing working soon....

Best regards!

[Blencogo]

Hi MdeBont and welcome to Club Vaio.

I have attached the correct SATA driver to the bottom of this post.

However, I do not think that is your problem.

Can you go to C:\BOOT.INI and open it in Notepad. Copy the contents for us to have a look at and post it here.

Have you still got the Sony Recovery Partition in a separate partition?

[MdeBont]

Hi!

Thanks for your help!

Well, I can't seem to find the Boot.ini file... I see all files, included the hiden ones, but there is no boot.ini. Maybe that's the problem?

I didn't do anything with the recovery partition so it's still there!

Thanks again for taking the time to reply!

[MdeBont]

Hi,

After a google search on why I can't find the boot.ini, i came up with a solution to find it.

Here's the text in the file:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

This is the boot.ini on my C: drive (with Vista installed), hope that's the one you mean.

Thanks,
M.

[Blencogo]

Hi,

Boot.ini is the XP Pro bootloader and seems to be OK but this cannot be used by Vista.

It sound like a problem with Vista's Boot Configuration Data (BCD). Have you tried EasyBCD to edit the Vista Bootloader for a dual-boot system?

Have a look at the tutorial here: -

http://apcmag.com/how_to_dual_boot_vista_and_xp_with_vista_installed_first__the_stepbystep_guide.htm...

It gives a link to download EasyBCD. Make sure you use the correct drive letter for XP.

[MdeBont]

Hi, thanks for your reply again! I think I now know what the problem is. I used Vistabootpro as boot software. But after reading the tutorial in your link, I found out that with the EasyBCD software you can set the drive for XP to C: instead of D:.

In the tutorial (comments) is described that I should set the boot drive for XP and Vista to C:. That could explain why XP can't find the files, it is searching on the wrong partition.

I'm at work right now, but I will give it a try tonight. I'll let you know if it helped or not.

Thanks again mate, i really appreciate your help!

[MdeBont]

Hi man,

Well, it worked! I've used the EasyBCD, set the XP boot to c: instead of D:, and now I finally have a dual boot Vaio! I still have to find all the drivers for the soundcard and so on, but that shouldn't be as difficult as making it a dual boot system :smileygrin:

I want to thank you for all your help, without the link you gave me I was probebly still wondering what the heck went wrong. So thanks mate, you're my hero of the day

All the best,
M.