A while back, I found out how to dual boot vista and xp. I then got an XP disk and booted it from the BIOS. Eveything worked perfectly until it asked me for the Key... I typed in the key and it gives me a message that the key is invalid... Now i want to boot vista again but whenever i reboot, it takes me straight to the xp installation screen again. I can't log in. and it won't let me reformat my drive in CMD... Please how can I fix this?
If you boot from the vista install disk, and choose to do a repair, the automated repair tool will see your MBR is porked and re-write it for you.
XP must be installed first, then Vista.. And when it asks for the serial number, just click will give serial later and uncheck the left side.. I am running a tirple boot with Longhorn/xp/workstation 2008.... unless done right,you can mess up your boot loader..
I believe that it a feature found with XP install disks which have Sp3 on. You may consider contacting Microsoft and ask them for a new key. Which version of windows are you trying to install?
That's strange, did it even see that the MBR was messed up? Did it identify the previous installation of vista at all? If not you may have inadvertently allowed the xp installation for format your disk along with your vista installation. EDIT [ot] WHOOHOOO 500 POSTS [/ot]
Xp does not have the option to skip the serial number only VISTA does.. and you must install XP first then Vista, Vista will take care of the boot loaded and you will wine up with OLD windows and Vista when it boots..
Never mind. I just gave up, formatted my hard drive and reinstalled Vista. Now it Works fine. Sorry to trouble you all.