Windows Vista Problem with Vista, downgrade to XP?

Okay, so here's the deal.

I've got a Gateway W350A.
AMD Turion x64 dual core
2GB RAM
250GB HDD
Came installed with Vista Home Premium.


A while back it gave me the error, "bootmgr is missing, press ctrl-alt-del to restart ", while starting up.

I googled around, found a few answers, and went to my provided "Vista Recovery-Installation Disk "

Went in, tried to auto-fix. Didn't work.
Found a few forums that said to look for the location of BOOTMGR and to copy and/or replace it with the provided command prompt tool via the recovery disk.

Did that. Still when I start up I get the same message that bootmgr is missing.

THEN I decide well, I didn't like Vista much anyway, so I went back to command prompt and formatted my c:\ drive.
My plan being to freshly install XP Pro.

Formatted fine, but I put in my XP Pro disk, and it comes up again with the same **** message!

FRUSTRATION TO THE MAX!



HELP!


*****UPDATE*****
Got through XP instal to where it restarts itself.. then blue screen comes up.

" STOP: c0000221 {Bad Image Checksum} The image comdlg32.dll is possibly corrupt. The header checksum does not match the computed checksum "

 

How long have you had this PC? Is it possible that the hard drive is failing?

 

Its been about 7 months.

The harddrive should be fine,
i ran an error check utility in command prompt to see if something got out of whack. but everything checked out.

 

Two more questions:

1. Does the problem recur on subsequent reboots after a full shotdown?
2. Was XP installed from a retail CD or from an OEM CD that came with a different computer?

 

it did recurr.

and its a retail CD.

 

My suggestion, remove and remake the partitions.

Another, use the Hard Disk Drive manufacturer's "setup" utility to partition and format the drive.

Matt

 

Vista boot problems

Hi!
Sadly..many OEM-provided XP versions will only install on like-make PC's..ie..Dell to Dell only. I'm sorry to report you cannot legally downgrade VISTA home to XP. For future reference..only Ultimate and Business VISTA
versions can be downgraded to XP without paying more.

Back to your problem at hand:

I have not seen the infamous missing ntldr error in many, many moons...and I didn't see it with VISTA...only with XP.

Oh..with recovery console..autofix never..ever..fixes anything in my experience.

I do have a few ideas, though...as I had a very, very sick box brought to me
last week.

Do you have access to a working box? You may be able to make a bootloader disk using my personal fav..masterbooter and install this bootmanager and boot VISTA from it.

Download it from here:

http://www.masterbooter.com/main/news.php?lang=en

If that does not work..I have a few othr things to suggest later.

Bryon

 

It may well be that the MBR and/or MFT are corrupted. Myself, I would completely clean the disk of partitions and use the OEM disk for Vista and put Vista back on it and move forward.

 

can someone give me the best and fullest format process?
i used command prompt>format c> but that hasnt worked...


Anything better?

And as far as bootmanager.. a walkthrough would be nice.

I know most things.. But I dont have the patience to just play it by what I think is right.

 

Vistqa troubleshooting-startup problems

Hi!
I hate giving people bad advice..so I had to setup VISTA on one of my servers running Virtual Server 2005.

Ok..Vista is very, very different....as expected. VISTA has an option for startup repair. It is described here:

http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/Windows/en-US/Help/5c59f8c1-b0d1-4f1a-af55-74f3922f3f351033.mspx

If that does not work..take a look here:

http://forums.microsoft.com/TechNet/ShowPost.aspx?PostID=3543216&SiteID=17

This is what I had to do to fix the box last week..only difference it was XP.

Bryon

 

first of all in order to change to xp you will have to wipe out the hard drive and start from scratch
microsoft products generally will not allow a previous os to be installed over a newer one ( marketing concerns)
If you do install xp on a fresh drive it takes some skill
The drivers can usually be hunted down with cross referencing of components back to the original motherboard manufacturer and drivers if possible for peripheals
It can often be done but it takes a fair amount of effort
Plus you will have to purchase an xp licence
Many would consider a change from Vista to XP to be a serious upgrade not a downgrade
Its all reminescent of the tale of the emperor's clothes
Wonder if msoft will have learnt its lesson of world domination by the next go around - Vienna or Windows 7

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Windows_7

 

Ok..more options

Hi!
I think you would benefit from a dual-boot system. If you have decided to keep VISTA..but want XP as well..dual boot is the way to go.

If you want XP..you are going to have to buy a XP license. I would suggest:

http://www.tigerdirect.com

I don't believe you will find a cheaper legal source for XP than there...unless you choose to become a system builder like moi.

All my PC's are dual-boot..and many of my servers as well. In fact..I have one server that has eight OS's on it. I'll admit I *MAY* have got a bit carried away with her..but hey..boys with toys!

Now..first order is to partition the drive into several partitions.

Do you have a dos diskette? You can download one if you don't know anyone who has Win 98 SE. There are even programs that will make a boot diskette for you that are downloadable. You must have access to another PC, though.

Before I spend a lot of time on this..do you have a diskette drive? DOS diskette with fdisk and format on it is critical..unless you want to use linux.

I'll wait and see what you say before going further.

Bryon