Hello pfontes, and welcome to PROnetworks!

The ntldr and NTDETECT files your looking for aren't contained in the \WINDOWS directory, or any sub-directories, the should be in the root directory of the drive XP is installed on.

As boot.ini is already on the Vista partition, it's possible that ntldr and NTDETECT are there also. It might be worthwhile starting a new thread detailing the full problems you are having.

Q 6 an 7
There should be one in the root of the XP drive. If not get them from the XP cd.

Boot.ini. You will have to rename the boot.ini file, open it with Notepad, make your edits, then saveas boot.ini
You can either keep your renamed boot.ini or delete it. I say keep it for a few days.

Thank you guys, everything is working fine. Now, I do have a boot menu. Some additional questions:

1 - Since the OS entry "Windows Recovery Environment" in the boot menu does not work fine, may I delete this entry and retain just XP and Vista entries?

2 - May I continue using Norton Ghost v.12 (disk image software) to backup my disk/partitions?

Thanks again.

1. not sure - if you do delete it make sure you have created orginal recovery disk


2. i do not see why

NT50 wrote:

2. i do not see why

I use Norton Ghost 12 to create image backup of critical partitions, including "System" (usually 'C:' ) partition. It is better than "System Restore" to recover the system after any malfunction due to wrong software installation.

If I have just XP or just Vista installed, Norton Ghost works fine.

But, after installation of VistaBoot (Vista on C / XP on D), which works fine, Norton Ghost recovery process fails. I mean: Norton Ghost imaging and recovery process works fine, but, although Vista boots OK, XP does NOT boot anymore after the recovery process.

Thanks in advance for any help.

1. Try Acronis

2. Your dealing with a different way of booting now. Vista now has its own boot manager. VistaBootPro is jsut a GUI to help with the commands. The only way your going to get a purley succssful image is to have only one hard drive with bot OS install on it then image that complete hard drive.

3. If your wanting daily backup images, then look into Windows Home Server. I have it and love it.

I want make dual BOOT
VISTA
MS-DOS
I want ms dos to ghost image files n backup when i need.

Plz help me...
Thnx

Vista boot manager does not support DOS.
I think there have been some people who have been successful doing it but you may need to make a new post/thread in the Windows Vista Boot Problems in order to get the attention it needs.

You could use Acronis which supports Vista.

Wow, this is a lot to read and work through. I had the same issue that XP would not boot anymore after installing VistaBootPro.
The hint for the kernel files fixed my situation. I searched on both windows directories (XP and VIST) for ntldr, ntdetect.exe and boot.ini. I could not find any of the files - strange. Anyhow, I copied the files ntldr and ntdetect.exe from my XP installation DVD to the windows directories of XP and VISTA. Voila, and XP is booting again.
Still don't understand why I don't find the boot.ini by I guess I don't have to understand everything in Windows (not that I believe this is possible :-) ).

I hope this helps other frustrated users.

Thanks for the boot software - it makes life a lot easier.

hi m8s!!
a noob question... were do you find this "3 system files" they are impossible to find for me!!!! a guide plz!!