Fixing Dual boot

[ApolloIV]

Months ago I installed XP and Windows 7 on 1hdd. Now awhile back I did this same thing in a VBox and fixed the xp mbr fine but when I went to do it to my physical box I blew the boot away and was unable to fix it to go back into my xp box. Which isn't a big deal because all I do is game and a clean box is a happy box. Now I have the same setup again but I have a laptop hdd that i want to throw into a esata external and install 7 to that so i need to try and fix my mbr again. I've read up on it but like I said I blew my boot away last time. Does anyone know the correct way of doing this?

 

[KSoD]

Sadly what you want to do wont work. Win7 doesnt allow installation to a external device.

To fix a XP boot just insert the XP CD amd go to the Recovery Console and use the fixboot and fixmbr commands.

 

[ApolloIV]

Well thats upsetting... I was told you can do it if it was an esata. Well anyways for the fixboot and fixmbr command's are their any do's and don'ts? And does the order in which you use them affect what they do?

 

[KSoD]

There are ways to install Win7 on a external device. But you will have to find that information else where. As it is not support by default and it requires you to modify the installer and possibly cause corruption to the install. So it is not supported by any measure.

I would do fixboot first. The fixmbr would be useless to do first if the boot was still corrupted.