Recovering a lost Operating System on another Partition

[B-Man]

Okay, I think I did an oopsie if I ever want to get my Vista operating system working again.

Last night I finally got my XP CD and decided to try and dual boot the bugger with XP as my primary and Vista as my secondary boot. I had a pre-installed partition with my machine when I bought it and decided to load XP onto it. Everything seemed all nice and peachy. XP set up and drivers working and I was happy.

But in my contentment, I've seemed to've hid my Vista operating system from the boot option. I only have my XP available (which is located on my I drive), but I still have my Vista files intact (which is located on C (by default on Vista and on XP).

Is there anyway, without harming my Win XP, of recovering my Vista operating system at the boot screen, or has my ill thoughts for Vista finally made my wish come true? (My wish was to be rid of Vista)

[Rawhide]

I don't have as much experience with Vista as I have with previous operating systems, but you should try inserting the Vista operating system disk then rebooting. Make sure your BIOS is set to boot from CD. There will be an option to repair Vista's boot issues.

When making a dual or multi boot computer, you should always start by installing the oldest operating system first, and work your way to the newest. The older operating systems don't know how to handle the newer ones and will often prevent them from working.

[Lochar]

I do believe you mean to start with the oldest operating system first.

[B-Man]

Would I be able to use the XP install CD? The fine folks at Acer wouldn't give me a recovery disc for the machine I bought.

[SMEE]

B, take a look at the following link:

http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista/en/library/08d64d13-4f45-4a05-bd86-c99211a93dd91033.mspx?mfr=true

You might be able to run this tool under XP and set up your dual boot.

Edit:
Or do what they suggest here: http://forums.whatthetech.com/winxp_and_win_vista_t90567.html

[B-Man]

Thanks Bea. I'll attempt those prescribed methods in a while. I've bookmarked the pages. Thank you all for your support.