Fixing The MBR In Windows XP

It asks for a admin password after I log onto the drive. And I can't remember the password for it. It's not my user logon password for sure.

I'm just bascialy trying to boot up in XP again after putting Vista on my pc. Mainly because there's somethings on my pc that won't work with Vista.

(My version of Nero won't work right, and it's one of the newest versions. And a few other things. But it would be too long to list here.)

And thanks for any help at all guys. =D

 

MBR has nothing to do with admin password, it is related to the partition of your HD. Try to reset the partition (assuming you don't use third party boot manager) using TestDisk

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v654/Bemani_573/Untitled.jpg

This is what I get when I'm in vista.

And when I use my XP disk to try and repair it, this is what happens. I log onto the drive in the command promt, try the repair, and it asks for the admin password and I can't go anywhere from there. I know I'm the admin in vista for sure here too.

Sorry if these questions seem rather stupid too. ^-^;; I'm always more than willing to learn and figure out all this stuff. I googled this before I came here as well. And couldn't figure anything out to fit it.

And thank you guys for all your help. :cool

 

hu ! it seems like you're stuck in a kind of deleted active partition. How is it possible ? Get some free restore tools on this site, one is called MBR Work, you'll be able then to perform some analyzes and install standard MBR code. If no partitions exist in the MBR then this option will allow you to recover lost FAT, HPFS, NTFS, and Extended partitions. But first try to edit MBR partition entry values to be sure there is one or not.

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v654/Bemani_573/Untitled-1.jpg

I can't run these on vista, or I'm doing something wrong here.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v654/Bemani_573/Untitled2.jpg

And it looks like there trying to force you to stick with Vista here. Seriously.

 

Actually this is not related to the active partition, the "no harddisk found" on the previous screenshot got me too nervous ;-) In that case you couldn't have been able to launch vista..Btw all repair tools involving boot sectors writings must be run from a floppy drive or a cdrom. You can't fix up MBR from the drive you're on..Since Vista seems to be the culprit, I suggest you to also post on vista related threads.. From within vista explorer, do you see the XP drive with the folders and the files or is it hidden ?

 

Just to clarify- are you trying to install Windows XP now that Vista is installed, or are you set up in a dual boot and trying to switch back to Windows XP O/S?

If you are in a dual boot situation, then you should see the following prompt when you reboot your computer:

Windows Vista
Previous operating system

Do you see this at all?

 

There's 1.41 GB of stuff in the WINDOWS folder where XP should be on the D: drive. So I assume it is still there.

And yes I see that too. Just a second and I'l edit this post when I try to choose XP from that menu.

Edit: This is the error I get when I try to choose XP in the boot menu:

File: \ntldr

Status: 0xc000000f

Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.

And I'll try burning that stuff to cd. But my copy of Nero 7 got corrupted and won't run on Vista yet I assume. This happend when putting Vista on here I assume.

 

ntldr is the boot loader for XP boot sequence. Why can't you copy/paste that missing file from within vista to the root of XP drive, since there is a backup version in C:\Windows\ServicePackFiles\i386\Ntldr ?

 

I tryied to find that folder but couldn't in either drive. Is it hidden? And how would I make it appear?

 

In the windows directory, clearly visible. If you can't find it, maybe you're not running XP SP2 ?

 

I know I have SP2 on there. Could be because I don't actualy have admin prvleges(sp) for that folder.

 

I found the 244kb NTLDR file on my Windows XP Pro cd and copyied it to the D:\WINDOWS folder. And that didn't fix it.

 

Hi Terra (Red)
I'll be back next monday, time for breaking off here in France..

 

When you installed Vista, did you partition the drive and install it to a different partition than where your XP resides? If not, then you completely overwrote your XP installation, and you cannot get it back, short of doing a complete clean install of XP with the CD again.

 

It appears some editing of the boot.ini file may be required:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927817/en-us

Basically, if your boot.ini file reads "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)...", you may need to change it to "multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)...".

Hope this helps!

 

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v654/Bemani_573/Untitled-2.jpg

Windows XP Pro is on the D: drive. I had to copy the boot file from a backup I found in the windows folder. And I got the Ntldr file off my Windows XP Pro cd. That is currently what the text looks like in it. And adding both files, changing those two parts to (1) doesn't change anything in the boot manager it seems.

I still get the \ntldr error exactly like how I posted it before in this thread.

Edit: It looks like this too. Just to have all this together.

File: \ntldr

Status: 0xc000000f

Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.

Again thank you all for your help here. I am -very- greatfull you all are helping out here. =D

 

Hmmm... could still be the boot.ini file. Is Vista installed on a seperate physical hard-drive, or on a different partition of the same hard drive?

Another quick question, Vista Ultimate Edition comes with a file encryption utility called "bitlocker", did you use that application at all since installing Vista?

 

Both OS's are on the same HDD (320GB WD). But the Vista partition is on C: (around 10GB there). And Windows XP Pro is on D: (Around 288GB there.)

And I haven't used bitlocker for anything.