Are you unable to boot your Windows 7 or Windows Vista operating system-based computer, after making it dual-boot with an earlier version of Windows operating system? Do you encounter error when your system tries to read disk? This behavior of Windows may occur due to various compatibility issues and make your system unusable. At this point, you can not access your hard drive partitions and encounter partition loss situations. In order to recover lost partitions in such circumstances, Windows Data Recovery is required.

As a practical example, you may come below issues after installing an earlier version of MS Windows on a Windows Vista or Windows 7-based machine in dual-boot configuration:

Windows Vista does not boot after making your system dual-boot. Only earlier version of Windows boots up. When you install an extra instance of Windows XP on a system, which has Windows Vista and Windows XP in dual-boot configuration, the below error message occurs. “Disk read error has occurred.”

This behavior make your system inaccessible. To recover lost partitions in such cases, it becomes essential to find the cause of this problem and perform Windows Data Recovery by sorting it out.

Reason

This behavior of Windows operating system occurs as earlier versions of MS Windows are not compatible with Windows Vista boot method. Vista employs a new BCD (Boot Configuration Database) store. The BCD includes a boot menu and the information about the operating system, which are installed on your computer. Thus, the Boot.ini file which is from earlier version of Windows can not be used for booting up Windows Vista.

Resolution

You can try out the following things to work around this problem:

Use the Bootsect.exe for restoring Windows Vista Master Boot Record (MBR) and boot code, which transfers control to Windows Boot Manager (WBM) program. Use Bcdedit.exe for creating a manual entry in BCD Boot.ini file in earlier version of Windows. Reboot your system.

If the above method does not work, you need to format your hard drive and reinstall Windows Vista. In this case, you will lose all your hard drive partitions and need to Recover Partitions.

The Partition Recovery Software make it quite easy to retrieve lost hard drive partitions. The software are able to handle all types of partition loss situations, using advanced scanning methods.

Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is the best made software that provides assured recovery of lost Windows partitions. It recovers FAT16, FAT32, VFAT, NTFS, and NTFS5 file system partitions. The software is designed for Microsoft Windows 7, Vista, 2003, XP, and 2000.