On startup I get the message about 'winload.exe' being missing or corrupt. All the information I can find indicates correcting this issue with the startup recovery utility, which is part of the vista OS install cd. My problem is that I only have the 'Restore' cd, which does not give me access to the utilities - it just 'restores' the root drive to the original configuration (with this little startup glitch). How can I get the vista startup utilities on a separate bootable cd in order to correct the vista startup, or is there another work-around?

Thanks in advance.

Have you tried booting from the DVD? Usually the tools are accessed from the DVD as a part of the boot sequence. When the "Install Now" prompt comes up, there should be a "Repair" option on the lower left portion of the screen. This has worked with a couple of "Restore" DVD's for me.

Yes. I have been trying to do everything from the restore DVD. The problem is that it only restores the factory image onto the root drive - nothing more. No recovery tools, no boot-up into Windows Vista. The manufacturer just responded to me saying that my hard drive has a bad partition, but if this were true, then I should not be able to install XP Pro successfully (which I tried and did).

My end goal is to have dual-boot with Vista & XP Pro. I liked some of what I saw with Vista, but was unable to utilize some of my programs (AutoCAD & others) which is why I am pushing to get both systems up and running. I know about VistaBootPro and their solution to correct the bcdedit file in order to enable dual boot. Right now, I'm just trying to get to that point in the process...

I'd suggest a few diagnostics on your hard drive before proceeding further. The manufacturer of the hard drive should have some free utilities for this (if they don't, there's some others that can be used).

Once the diagnostic is done, then I'd suggest looking further into the recovery options on your system. Somewhere in the programs listed will be a recovery option - which will reboot your system into recovery mode. Let us know the make and model of your system and we can make some suggestions about this.

As for installing XP after Vista - I'd have to guess that you'd have to install it to a separate partition, and then edit the Vista boot record to reflect it's location (but I haven't done it myself).