BleepingComputer.com: Winload.exe

Last year I had a dual boot of XP Pro and Vista Ultimate SP1. XP installed first. Each on their own 250 Gb HDD. I decided to go full time with Vista and erased XP, but in order to get Vista to boot I had to keep the boot file on the XP hdd. So now I have one OS (Vista) and a boot file on two seperate hard disks. As long as both HDD's were in my PC Vista boots fine, when I remove the second disk (old XP disk) the boot gets this: "File \windows\system32\winload.exe" and "The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt." Status "0xc000000e." I would like to fix this.

So what I have tried: Running Vista automatic repair off Vista CD, it says it fixed startup options but nothing changes with boot.
I also tried to run command prompt "fixmbr and fixboot" and a couple other commands, again changing nothing.
I even went to \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe and tried to overwrite winload.exe in \windows\system32\ folder, but that didn't work because I needed Vista's 'special' permission to do it. Even in command prompt running with administrator permission. ( Vista!)

I have read many forums, including Bleeping Computer, and nothing has fixed this issue. Now I know that a clean install will solve this but I would like that to be my LAST option.

Thanks for any insight on this.
Caspersim

Greetings .

Take a look at these and see if either of them is helpful:

• Recovering the Vista Bootloader with EasyBCD
  
• Recovering the Vista Bootloader from the DVD

By the way, when you did the Startup Repair from the Vista disc, did you make sure that your second hard drive (the one that had XP on it) was NOT connected? The reason I ask is because, if it was connected, that would prevent Vista from detecting a problem with the installation.

The second (XP disk) was not installed in the PC when I did any of the attempted repairs.

Thank you exile360 for the quick response, I will look into the links and let you know.

Ok, easyBCD has saved my bacon quite a few times. If that doesn't get it you may have to open the command prompt from the Vista disc and replace the file manually, or just resort to a repair install (making sure your primary drive is the only one connected).

I did all the steps in the tutorial except the last, Nuclear Holocaust, one. Its a little over my skill level. Well...the only thing that changed was that I can no longer boot into Vista WITH the second HDD installed. So the mbr is in really bad shape now.
So I think I have come to terms with the fact that I have to reinstall. I have just backed up my data and I will be doing a new install tomorrow. Any more sugestions will still be much appreciated.

Thanks

If you can boot from a disc and browse to the file on the second HDD and delete the leftover boot files it should fix it. You'll probably need BartPE or UBCD to do it, but it should be fairly easy. Just look for Winload.exe, bootmgr etc in the root of that drive and delete them. That should fix the second HDD issue, then you'll need to do a startup repair from the Vista disc with only your primary drive plugged in. Aside from that, I don't know.