I want to recover Vista64 because I installed XP64 but did not partition the drive first. Now only XP appears?

Question

I followed some bad advice and installed XP 64 in a different directory of my C:\ drive than my original operating system (VISTA 64) without partitioning first. Now when I boot up, XP 64 is the only option. When I hit F8 at startup, it only recognizes the XP operating system. Vista isn't even an option. I can see that I did not overwrite the files for Vista, but since It came with the computer, I don't have the original Vista DVD either. Is there anything that I can do from within the XP 64 operating system to make it recognize that Vista is still there? Once I can get Vista back up, I will delete XP, partition the drive and reinstall XP 64... Any ideas?

Answer 1

First how exactly did you install XP 64 on your vista partition? Normally XP wont let you install another OS, without partitioning the drive first, (wont let you just write over the other files, without formatting them first). I would assume that vista would be the same way. If you put the CD in and installed it like that where it showed you the drive, and you had to split the drive up to install the XP, you should just be able to modify the boot order, Check into adding Vista to the boot log or something like that..  

Answer 2

Not being silly but do you have a 64 bit CPU

Best way Is to partition hard drive depending on size

500 GB into 4 partitions of 125GB

300GB into 3 partitions of 100GB

the least size of partition you want is 100GB

Use the partition section of " Hirens Boot CD " Partition Magic it will

partition your drive without losing your operating system

Then try to install WIN 64 bit  on second partition it enables you to choose which partition to install on