I decided to load xp onto my vista machine following the tutorial from this site. all went well until i am supossed to put in my vista disk... i dont have one, (i know, i know, i have learned)

i downloaded a copy of vista but when the machine boots up with the vista disk in, it starts loading files, then the windows logo with timebar comes up for a little but, then my cd stops spinning, and the screen goes black until i turn of my laptop

any help would be greatly appretiated

it boots into xp fine but i can not get into vista

So you are saying that you do not have a legal copy of Win Vista. Is your Win XP legal or did you download that as well...

so what you are saying is that you only followed part of the instructions from this site and ignored the rest...till it was too late and now you are what ...trying to beg us to fix your mistakes from not doing what was explained....hmmmmm....I need to think about that for a bit to see if I should bother at all!

OK....I thought about it and I guess I will try to help you repair it.
But first I need to know a few things!

1) Did you make a back up of your system before you attempted this?
2) Do you have legitamate copies of the operating systems you are trying to dual boot to?
3) very important to number 2 above......Is the copy of the vista operating system you downloaded the same as what is installed or do you even know!

Thanks for taking the time...

1. I have all of the data im bothered about
2. XP pro is legal, vista on my machine is legal,
3. vista i have downloaded is unlikely to be the same, I was hoping that it would get me out of a hole so that i could get vista booted and burn my own recovery discs

Just a note about Vista.
There is a trial version of Vista, if you can find it. That is how I tested my system to see if everything was compatible. I believe any version not pre-activated will work for 30 days if you can find one. Or you can order one from here from Microsoft for $7. *Guess it's not your lucky day, they took it down today (20Feb).
https://na.windowsanytimeupgradestor...T/GoodBye.aspx

So if you have the right version (not a pre-activated OEM or activated pirated), that is not your issue.

What you need to do is find out exactly what operating system you have as Vista. Use the model of the computer and go back to the manufacturer web site and under support get a list of what OS was installed on that machine...

This might help you decide also....

Windows Vista ships in six editions.These are roughly divided into two target markets, consumer and business, with editions varying to cater for specific sub-markets. For consumers, there are four editions, with three available for developed countries. Windows Vista Starter edition is limited to emerging markets. Windows Vista Home Basic is intended for budget users with low needs. Windows Vista Home Premium covers the majority of the consumer market. For businesses, there are two versions. Windows Vista Business is specifically designed for small business, while Windows Vista Enterprise, the premium business edition is only available to customers participating in Microsoft's Software Assurance program. Windows Vista Ultimate contains the complete feature-set and is aimed at enthusiasts.

All editions except Windows Vista Starter support both 32-bit (x86) and 64-bit (x64) processor architectures.

In the European Union, Home Basic N and Business N versions are also available. These come without Windows Media Player, due to EU sanctions brought against Microsoft for violating anti-trust laws. Similar sanctions exist in South Korea.

Dell and Microsoft partnered up to support (PRODUCT) RED. Microsoft released the Windows Vista Ultimate (PRODUCT) RED that exclusively will come together with Dell (PRODUCT) RED Computers.

Once you decide or aquire the correct version then reinstall it over the older one installed and you will still be able to use the COA code on the side of your computer to activate it!

Without the exact system you are kind of stuck because during the precheck if everything doesn't just match perfectly it will lock you out.

This might be an answer to your issues also.

http://www.syschat.com/dual-booting-....html#post9915

Thanks for all of the suggestions...

i ended up recovering back to out of the box state from a HD partition...

now my question is how do i get xp and vista working on the same machine without any vista discs? its not letting me create recovery discs in vista, error, no HDD recovery area???

I would be happy with just vista but my work software wont run on it or just XP but most of my drivers dont exist

download and install the boot manager from the link in my post above. The boot manager will install to the lead in of the harddrive and run from there. It will allow you to now install any operating system into any blank partition in any order and create a dual boot envirenment on your computer without having to worry about destroying the boot files.... I have been using a similar one for years...it is totally free.