BleepingComputer.com: Tried to install dual boot on Win 7, now no OS will load

I have had windows 7 installed on my PC for a little while, but I wanted to create a dual boot and install windows xp back on it.
I separated a a small 5 gig partition on my hard drive to install windows xp on.
I put the xp cd in the drive in rebooted and ran the disc, it came up to the selection of the partition and I selected the partition and it formatted it to ntfs and then it restarts to continue setup, BUT the setup never continued...
Now my computer wont start up in windows 7 OR the xp setup.
If I boot from the windows xp cd, it just goes through the same choose the partition to install on thing and restarts.

Please help!!

Thanks.

Hi,

I am using XP Pro 32 on Microsoft Virtual PC 2007 as "guest"and feel that this work a lot much better than a previous dual boot with Windows 7 64 that I had before.

The best, you can use it without any special hardware and, more, all misleaded changes can be undone at just one click.

You can find more on MVPC 2007 at:

http://www.microsoft.com/downloads/details...;displaylang=en

Please, if you find any question about to how work on it, feel yourself free to ask.

But, if you wish to stay on a dual boot, install XP before (20GB) and Win 7 after to be successful.

Rgds.

Rzarekt -

To my knowledge you can't go "backwards" when you set up a dual boot - you would have had to install XP first and then Windows 7 for the dual setup to work properly. Setting aside 5 Gigs for XP, imho, is also a little small and would give it at least 20 Gigs providing you have a large enough HD.

One thing I thought of as I read your post and also was guilty of doing many years ago is hitting the "Enter Key" when the system reboots *halfway* through the install. This is normal - you boot from the XP disc, it installs and spends a while putting generic drivers in and then at some point the system needs to reboot. At that time a DOS-like message comes up that says "Boot from CD" and ticks off seconds. You do NOT want to hit the Enter Key at this time - XP is not finished installing. A lot of people on other forums I've posted to have made this error and once they let the system finish installing the OS all was ok. Don't hit the Enter Key, let XP finish installing and only when it says it's done do you remove the disc from the drive.

I do think your main problem is trying to go backwards from 7 to XP and the installation is getting confused. Only way around this is to format the HD(s), install XP first and then Windows 7..........both times do not hit the Enter Key when prompted unless you are positive you are done installing the complete operating system.