http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ How-To Geek Forums Topic: SOLUTION to "Disk Read Error" when dual booting vista and xp (Vista 1st) en Thu, 08 Jan 2009 19:11:02 +0000 http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/solution-to-disk-read-error-when-dual-booting-vista-and-xp-xp-1st#post-5563 Mon, 24 Dec 2007 19:25:36 +0000 michael 5563@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Thanks jdaman! I've been looking for a solution. :D</p> <p>--<br /> Mike </p> http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/topic/solution-to-disk-read-error-when-dual-booting-vista-and-xp-xp-1st#post-5181 Tue, 18 Dec 2007 01:23:57 +0000 jdaman5 5181@http://www.howtogeek.com/forum/ <p>Hi all, I'm new to the site. Thought i'd share my experience trying to perform a dual install with Vista and XP. (What a nightmare!)</p> <p>I have recently had problems installing XP with Vista install but am happy to inform all of you that i may have a solution to the "Disk Read Error occurred, press ctrl-alt-del to continue" error. Note that you need a Vista installation cd to do this. When you receive said error, throw your Vista cd into your computer and boot off it.</p> <p>When the install screen pops up, in the bottom left hand corner there is an option that says "Repair my Computer". Click it and it will take you to a box which prompts you to select your HDD. When you have done that a few options will appear in the box. Select the first option "Startup Repair" and it will do a scan then ask you to restart. If you select “Click here for diagnostic and repair details� it will tell you that a corrupt boot loader was found and fixed. </p> <p>Restart and hopefully you problem will be solved but in my case it wasn't. Instead the previous "disk read" error was replaced with "Error loading Operating system" I trawled the Microsoft knowledge base and goggled like a madman until I found someone with the same problem. This person said that deleting the XP installation and replacing it with Vista would solve the problem. So i booted up the Vista cd, formatted the XP installation and installed Vista on the same partition. This enabled my computer to boot up successfully with all of my files untouched =D.</p> <p>Well I hope this solves some problems relating to dual booting with Vista and XP. </p>