Dual boot using Ultrabay Failed T420

[bass1175]

I installed W7 64 bit in the main drive onto a 80gb SSD

Then Installed XP on an Ultrabay drive using a USB external. 320gb platter.

I noticed when choosing to boot from the SSD using f12 boot menu, it kept on going to the XP in the ultrabay.

So I took out the ultrabay all together forcing a main-drive boot and got this error

"Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem"

When installing xp I didnt remove the SSD as I didnt think I would need to.

I can get into XP and view all the SSD win7 files and all are intact, so its a boot issue. But I have access to the W7 ssd files if you have a solution.

Would like to boot from the SSD with the installed w7.

Any help on this is greatly appreciated.

[bass1175]

I just did a win 7 repair and it repaired my win 7 ssd installation but now the ultrabay xp install is corrupt when choosing the drive from boot menu f12 option.

[Saucey]

Maybe it took out the Master Boot Record from the SSD and applied it onto the UltraBay HDD
Boot under XP, see if you can view the files in the SSD. Check also the disk manager as well...

This linkmay help you, sounds similar to your situation.

There is also GPart to try but I don't understand it well enough to explain how to properly use it.
I just got lucky with it.

[bass1175]

Thanks Saucey for the help. So I fixed the Win 7 SSD with a win 7 repair, was worried about this OS as I spent hours and was just about to take an image.
And now Iam reinstalling winxp but with the SSD completely out the drive which I read a few places it makes a difference.

I wish I knew more about this myself.

Like when does one get the multi boot option and when do you have to press f12 and choose and how can one choose between the two types.

Also a friend of mine claims he has two OS one on an SSD and one on a PCI-e card and gets the boot option on startup without the need for f12.

Hope we get some experts from the forum to clarify.

Thanks again for the link will tell you if installing without the SSD installed fixes the issue or not.

[Saucey]

No problem. I ran into this issue with Ubunutu and Windows 7.
I also accidentally put the MBR on a flash drive once. Boy was that embarrasing.
There are workarounds to it. I didn't really look much into it because it surpassed my knowledge for the most part...
I ended up buying another unit to pass on the dual booting fiasco.