How to restore data from inaccessible Vista system after making it dual boot

Are you currently using Windows Vista and have recently installed Windows XP as well? Then, you are not alone in this regard as a number of users do this after they use Vista as they feel more comfortable with XP. However, sometimes due to some internal issues the Vista system is unable to boot. In such cases, you should try to resolve the issue using some in-house methods. If you are not able to fix the problem, then you should use a third-party data recovery software to perform data recovery from the Windows Vista system.

Consider a scenario wherein you have Windows Vista in your computer system. Now, you install Windows XP so as to make it a dual-boot system. However, when you start the system you are not able to boot the Windows Vista and only Windows XP is starting.

“Disk read error has occurred.”

Cause:
The primary cause of this error is that the versions of Windows operating systems earlier than Vista are not compatible with the startup method of Windows Vista and later versions.
In Windows Vista, as mentioned earlier, the BCD store is used to boot the system. Because of which, the earlier operating systems are unable to start Windows Vista, as they use the boot.ini file to boot the system.

Resolution:

To resolve this problem, you should start the system in the Recovery Console using the Boot CD. After this, you should perform the following steps:
Use Bootsect.exe tool: Use this tool to restore Vista MBR code and the boot code to transfer the control to the Windows Boot Manager program. You should use the following command at the command prompt:

prompt: Drive:\boot\Bootsect.exe /NT60 All

Use Bcdedit.exe tool: Use this tool to create an entry in the BCD Boot.ini file for the earlier versions of Windows operating systems. You should use the following commands for doing this:
Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /create {ntldr} /d “Description for earlier Windows version”
Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} device partition=x:
Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /set {ntldr} path \ntldr
Drive:\Windows\system32\Bcdedit /displayorder {ntldr} /addlast
Restart the computer. It should boot properly now.

However, if you still are not able to boot the system and access the valuable data then you should use a third-party data recovery software to recover the inaccessible files. Such data recovery tools are very user-friendly in nature that enable easy and safe data recovery.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is a file data recovery software that recovers lost, deleted, or formatted data from inaccessible FAT, NTFS, and exFAT file systems. This RAID data recovery utility is able to retrieve more than 185 different file types. It is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.