Each drive on the master was 40GB prior to Vista ?
Each drive on the master had a separate XP Pro installed in each 40GB partition.
Did you install Vista to unallocated space on the primary drive ?
Did you resize the D drive to create available space for the Vista install ?
Are the Ghost files on E: *.Gho or *.Ghs images ?
It is normal for Vista to be the C: drive and reassign all the letters.
Most would recommend that Vista should have 35-40GB unallocated free space or a unique and dedicated unformatted partition for itself to use during the install.
It almost sounds like Vista installed the bootloader on both XP machines..which would result in Vista 2x and XP Pro. Selection of XP Pro is then looking at the original boot.ini file which probably has been edited by Vista with a few remarks at the beginning of the file and two entries for XP.
Its good the XP Recovery Console wasn't installed..you;d have one more on each.
I've seen the second menu before on a dual boot system when the recovery console is installed on XP prior to installing Vista and letting Vista create the dual boot bootloader.(i.e. the second menu appears since a second xp choice was present, thus once XP is selected in a dual boot Vista, if the second was present prior to dual boot, you are still offered the second option that you had in XP before).
Proceed with caution and at your own risk.
In the case of a prior xp and recovery console system and later Vista setup dual boot....If one edits the modified boot.ini file on the XP source drive via Notepad in Vista and removes the non default option... the second menu will disappear. Attempting to edit the boot.ini file on the XP source drive will raise a few bells and whistles(read only, no permissions, etc before one can attempt to do so)
Note: There may be easier and more acceptable ways to accomplish this since after testing it, I returned the boot.ini file to its original untampered Vista created content.
You may wish to seek more confirmation before attempting editing a protected file on another o/s drive.
..winston
"Jack Ryan" <jackr@jackr.net> wrote in message news:uaArGM%23dHHA.2268@TK2MSFTNGP02.phx.gbl...
:I have the following:
:
: Primary drive (80Gb) divided into two equal partitions.
: Partition 1 (C
has XP pro installed and is my 'working' OS and drive
: Partition 2 (D
has XP pro installed that I use simply for testing
: items like add-ins, software, toolbars, other utilities, etc.
:
: boot.ini offers the choice of which.
:
: Slave drive (80Gb) is not partitioned and is labeled as (E
: This drive is used solely as storage for a mirror image (Norton Ghost)
: of drive C:.
:
: I have a Full Install version of Vista Home Premium that I attempted to
: install on D:
:
: Now, on boot, I have -not two as one would expect - boot choices but five
: (5)
: The first choice is the Vista boot file that lists "Earlier Version of
: Windows", and two "Vista" choices.
: It thinks the mirror image on E: is a working OS and lists it as a boot
: choice. Choosing this boot option does not - obviously - result in a boot
: but rather an error.
: If I choose the first "Vista" boot on the list the system boots to the OS
: installed on D: - as it should.
: If I choose to boot to the "Earlier Version of Windows" (XP pro on C
: another command window opens with boot.ini choices of 'Windows XP pro on C:'
: or 'Windows XP pro on D:'. Choosing the latter only produces an error since
: there is NO XP installed on D:.
:
: Once I wade through this boot mess and get to Vista it thinks it's using the
: "C:" drive, assigns itself to such, and reassigns letters to the other two
: drives. As a result of this I have unplugged the power and data cables from
: the "E:" drive because I'm not at all sure Vista won't try to mess it up
: some way.
:
: Question(s): How do I get rid of one of the duplicate 'Vista' entries in
: it's boot handler?
:
: How do I prevent the second boot window (the boot.ini one) from opening
: when I choose the "Earlier Version . . ." from the Vista boot handler?
:
: An aside - During the install I noted that all three drives were listed as
: choices of where to install Vista with the C: and E: listed using there
: respective sizes and used/available space but the D: drive size was listed
: as the full size of the physical drive on with it resides.
:
Linear Mode
