What's a good(free) boot manager?

[Helevitia]

Vista didn't setup dual boot automatically, so now I need to set it up. Anybody want to recommend a good boot manager? Free is good

[Jammrock]

I wouldn't recommend changing the boot manager unless the software explicitely states it is Vista compatible. Vista uses a completely new scheme. If your other OS(s) are still on partitions there is a command line you can use to add them to the Vista boot manager. I'll dig it up on Monday if you are interested.

[DGhost]

what os do you need to add?

[Helevitia]

I wouldn't recommend changing the boot manager unless the software explicitely states it is Vista compatible. Vista uses a completely new scheme. If your other OS(s) are still on partitions there is a command line you can use to add them to the Vista boot manager. I'll dig it up on Monday if you are interested.

Thanks man, I'd appreciate that.

[Helevitia]

what os do you need to add?

I need to add Windows XP.

[DGhost]

Looks like this tool will do the trick.

Push comes to shove it can be done using BCDEdit on an administrative command prompt...

[Helevitia]

Looks like this tool will do the trick.

Push comes to shove it can be done using BCDEdit on an administrative command prompt...

Hey Thanks! Awesome program! But it doesn't solve my problem. First of all, when I launch VistaBootPro, it tells me it can't find Vista or I have some kind of irregular setup. I then proceed to the program and I can add XP and even select the drive it's on. Btu when I reboot and select XP from the boot manager, I never see the XP logo and my computer restarts.

Here's the crazy thing, I can unplug the Vista drive and XP boots up. So I am thinking that maybe my boot.ini settings are now incorrect because Vista is considered the primary drive? What do you guys think? Here is my boot.ini file:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOW S
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Micro soft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

Keep in mind, this is different from what Vista boot manager shows.

[DGhost]

It's on two seperate drives? you might need to change that to multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1) if it is the slave drive...

[Jammrock]

hmmm... Give us the low down on what OS is on what drive and partition. If you're running them on any non-IDE/SATA disk we'll need to know that too.

[Helevitia]

Vista is on a 40GB IBM Deathstar on the VIA IDE controller. Setup as master.

XP is on a pair of 74G Raptors on the Promise SATA controller.

Vista didn't recognize the Promise controller on install, so I loaded x64 drivers and then it saw it, so I figured it would setup dualboot by default, but it didn't.

One suggestion I've read is to use my XP disk(which was accidentally thrown away and I need to download a copy since I have two legit keys) go to the repair console, type 'fixboot', then use VistaBootPro to re-setup the dual boot manager. What do you guys think of that idea?

[DGhost]

Ahhhhhh

Didn't know it was on a different controller. Depending on the order it's parsing them, it could be...

multi(1)disk(0)rdisk(0)

or, it might need to force it to load the scsi driver and...

scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)

it all depends on how the boot bioses are being handled by the boot loader. this is part of the reason that ntldr is not the best of choices...it can be kinda flaky... it's one of the reasons they developed the new one...

[DGhost]

I should also add... this can, of course, render XP unbootable and has the chance of breaking things. make sure you back up boot.ini and associated files before exploring it...

one way of doing it would be to copy the entry in the boot.ini and experiment with that. That way, you can still boot it straight off the hard drive and if you can make it work, you have an entry...

I should also add... because of the fact they are on different controllers it sounds like when it boots off of the SATA RAID controller it enumerates that out as the first adaptor. When it boots off the IDE drive it's likely going to enumerate it out as the second adaptor (hence the shift from multi(0) to multi(1)). Or maybe it needs to enumerate it out as a scsi adaptor and load the driver since it *didn't* boot off the RAID bios (which would require a switch from multi(0) to scsi(0).

This is, of course, speculation. There are other, equally annoying, possibilities as to what is going on in the bios. A little (not much) more information on this can be found in this MSKB Article.

Another option that's a little bit riskier would be to boot the XP drive, install the command console to the install, reboot, try to see if the Vista bootloader will boot into the recovery console, and then try running bootcfg /rebuild to see if it will detect XP's location right. Don't know if it would work, but it might.

Couple other KB articles - One OS is missing, Discussion on bootcfg.

Again, back up the boot.ini before hand...

[Helevitia]

Thanks for all of the good info, unfortunately it is still a no go. I tried every combination of multi and scsi wtih no luck. Everytime it tries to boot XP from the boot manager, it just reboots the system. So for now I have to unplug the Vista drive to boot XP, very annoying. I'll let you know if anything works. BTW, I still need to read "One OS is missing". Thanks!

[DGhost]

Suck. Sorry it didn't help at all. Like I said - there is a reason MS finally shitcanned NTLDR. It's just too much of a pain in the ass and has too many inconsistancies from platform to platform. Shit like this is why I always booted Linux from inside ntldr (easy as shit) rather than vice versa (serious pain in the ass).

[Helevitia]

One interesting note. I started exploring the Vista CD and came across something called bootsect.exe. Here is the help info:

F:\boot>bootsect /help
bootsect {/help|/nt60|/nt52} {SYS|ALL|<DriveLetter>:} [/force]
Boot sector restoration tool
Bootsect.exe updates the master boot code for hard disk partitions in order to
switch between BOOTMGR and NTLDR. You can use this tool to restore the boot
sector on your computer.
/help Displays these usage instructions.
/nt52 Applies the master boot code that is compatible with NTLDR to SYS,
ALL, or <DriveLetter>. The operating system installed on SYS, ALL, or
<DriveLetter> must be older than Windows Vista.
/nt60 Applies the master boot code that is compatible with BOOTMGR to SYS,
ALL, or <DriveLetter>. The operating system installed on SYS, ALL, or
<DriveLetter> must be Windows Vista or WindowsServer "Longhorn".
SYS Updates the master boot code on the system partition used to boot
Windows.
ALL Updates the master boot code on all partitions. ALL does not
necessarily update the boot code for each volume. Instead, this
option updates the boot code on volumes that could be used as Windows
boot volumes, which excludes any dynamic volumes that are not
connected with an underlying disk partition. This restriction is
present because boot code must be located at the beginning of a disk
partition.
<DriveLetter> Updates the master boot code on the volume associated with this
drive letter. Boot code will not be updated if either 1)
<DriveLetter> is not associated with a volume or 2) <DriveLetter> is
associated with a volume not connected to an underlying disk
partition.
/force Forcibly dismounts the volume(s) during the boot code update. You
should use this option with caution.
If Bootsect.exe cannot gain exclusive volume access then the file
system may overwrite the boot code before the next reboot.
Bootsect.exe always attempts to lock and dismount the volume before
each update. When /force is specified, a forced dismount is attempted
if the initial lock attempt fails. A lock can fail, for example, if
files on the target volume are currently opened by other programs.
When successful, a forced dismount allows exclusive volume access and
a reliable boot code update even though the initial lock failed. At
the same time, a forced dismount invalidates all open handles to files
on the target volume. This could result in unexpected behavior from
the programs that opened these files. Therefore, you should use this
option with caution.
Example:
To apply the master boot code that is compatible with NTLDR to the volume
labeled E:, use the following command:
bootsect /nt52 E:
F:\boot>
------------------------------------------------------
So I tried to use this command in Vista but somehow the drives are locked and I had to boot to the cli from the CD.

I first tried:
f:\boot\bootsect /nt52 ALL

This made the entire computer non-bootable and complained the ntldr was missing. I thought, Aha! I'm in the right place.

I then tried:
f:\boot\bootsect /nt60 c:

This fixed Vista back up again, but XP still will not boot. Seems like a command that can help me but I'm not sure of what other choices I have?

On a side note, the recovery section of Vista is way better than XP. A lot of clear options including restoring a backup!