How To Recover Vista After XP Installation

Posted on September 14th, 2007 by Jason

If you have installed, say, XP, on a Vista machine, in the Boot Menu, you may no longer be able to see Vista as an option. This occurs because when a different version of Windows is installed, it rewrites the MBR to call its own boot loader.

So if you install Vista on a PC where XP is already installed, the Vista boot menu incorporates the options from the older OS’s boot menu. But, on the other hand, if you install XP on Vista, it will overwrite the MBR with one that does not recognize the newer Vista’s Boot Loader.

So if you find that Vista is missing as an option in a multi-boot computer, you can resolve this issue, as follows :

Open cmd in XP.
Run :\Boot\ Bootsect.exe –NT60 All
Where is the Drive letter.
Reboot.

You will now be able to see the Vista menu option/s.

Now To restore the entry for XP, open an elevated command prompt and enter this:

Bcdedit –create {ntldr} –d “Put Description of Menu hereâ€
Restart Computer.

This entry was posted on Friday, September 14th, 2007 at 1:32 pm and is filed under Windows Vista, Windows XP. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

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6 Responses to “How To Recover Vista After XP Installation”

  1. MS Windows Vista Compatible Software on 14 Sep 2007 at 6:32 pm #

    other hand, if you install XP on Vista, it will overwrite the MBR with one that does not recognize the newer Vista’s Boot Loader. So if you find that Vista is missing as an option in a multi-boot computer, you can resolve this issue, as follows :( more…)bcdedit, boot computer, boot loader, boot menu, cmd, command prompt, multi boot, ntldr, overwrite, reboot, resolve, restart computer, vista, Windows, xp

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  4. Potvora on 16 Aug 2008 at 3:00 am #

    Yes I have this problem but the bootsect.exe is not there…

  5. Vince on 25 Aug 2008 at 5:53 am #

    Download EasyBCD. That program has the files.

  6. Denny on 23 Jun 2009 at 4:13 am #

    when i purchase notebook with original installed windows vista home premium (cd not provided) at (c:) then i install windows xp at (d:) but after i finished install win xp, my system can’t load vista anymore anyone have can help me?

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