Many of us often opt for having dual-boot operating systems. Nothing wrong in that, as it enables you to have a look-in for both types of operating systems. It is very helpful when you want to switch to a new operating system and want to test it before going for the actual switch. However, at times things go awry and you are unable to get access to the earlier version of operating system. This can happen because of various reasons and you should check the actual cause to recover partitions using appropriate methods. If the problem is not solved, then you should use a third-party Windows partition recovery software to resolve the problem.

Let us assume a practical situation that appears when you have installed Windows Vista on a system that already had Windows XP. Now, after doing this you are unable to start the Windows XP system. An error message is displayed in this situation, which is:

“Windows could not start because the following file is missing or corrupt:

C:\Windows\system32\ntoskrnl.exe. Please re-install a copy of the above file.”

Cause:

The root cause of this problem is that the Boot.ini file, after the installation of Windows Vista, could not find Windows XP at its defined location, which is specified in the Boot.ini file.

The reason behind this is that a new partition has been created by Windows Vista in the unallocated disk space. Because a new partition is created in front of the partition on which Windows XP is installed, the Boot.ini entry for the Windows XP installation points to an invalid partition.

Resolution:

The resolution of this problem involves three steps, which are described here:

Find the Boot.ini file: In this step, you should check for the Boot.ini file in the Windows XP partition. Prepare the Boot.ini file for editing: In this step, you should prepare the Boot.ini file for editing by providing the required privileges. Modify the Boot.ini file: You should modify the Boot.ini file by providing the correct path for Windows XP. Save the file after making the changes and close it. Restart the system in Windows XP after doing all these steps.

If you are still getting the same error message and are unable to boot in the Windows XP system, then you should urgently use a third-party [b]partition recovery[/b] utility to recover all the trapped data. With the assistance of a highly interactive user interface, these read-only data recovery tools recover Windows partition without any hassles.

With the ability to recover deleted, lost, or formatted data from FAT, NTFS, and exFAT file systems, Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery is considered to be the most efficient partition recovery software. Able to recover more than 185 different file types from hard drives, iPods, pen drives, memory cards, etc, this Windows partition recovery software is compatible with Windows 7, Vista, Server 2003, XP, and 2000.