So I have 2 hdd's a 250GB with a 20GB partition with windows XP Pro on it. The other part of the partition is blank. I bought Vista Ultimate and thought I would give it a try. I installed it on the other partition and rebooted and when it tries to load into vista it comes up and says \windows\system32\winload.exe is missing or corrupt status code: 0xc0000225. I then logged into windows XP and just formatted the drive....that sucked cause then I could not log back into windows XP it said that the NTLDR was missing... I then reinstalled Vista and was able to get back into XP (found out that Vista's boot loader takes over everything) I have tried finding out what is going on. The system specs are in my sig other than an 8800GTS, Samsung 206BW connected by DVI, Saitek usb keyboard, Logitech Mx518 mouse, WD 250GB SATA 2 HDD, WD 320GB SATA 2 HDD and that is all I can think of. If you know of a way to just at least help me to get rid of going through vista's boot loader just to get into xp would be greatly appreciated or just how to get into vista would be fine too....thanks for any help
The boot log of XP is older, of course, so it has to be installed first. XP has to be installed on the "C" drive or it will pitch a fit about it like a 3 year old. Vista, on the otherhand, doesn't care what drive its on; its uses quite a different bootlog than XP. That's the two biggest things about running Vista and XP in a dual boot.
Usually your going to go through Vista bootlog to do the dual boot into Vista or XP, but, iirc, there is a way to set priority. You could probably find a way, outside of third party applications, on Microsoft's TechNet forums if you do a search.