x64 boot problems

Hello,.. here is my situation..

I am setting up a dual boot system on a 10,000 rpm WD drive.
I created 2 partitions and installed x64 (22 gigs) on one partition and xpPRO (13gig) on the other partition.

I want the (NTLDR ?) boot menu to come up when i start my computer (so that i cant choose which OS) and for x64 to be the 1st option.

Currently if i press f8 during the Asus flash screen a blue box pops up asking me if i want to boot from my master or slave drive... if i select the slave drive the boot menu will appear asking me which os i want to boot. Both OS's will boot but xpPRO seems a bit unstable when i try to open pro tools LE (which is the only program i want to run on the xpPRO partition).

If i dont press f8 during the asus spash screen my computer boots from x64 with no boot menu.

I was looking around in my BIOS (yes i have the newest BIOS and all drivers to my knowledge) and i cant seem to figure it out. I have done this before and it worked properly...

any help would be greatly appreciated. thanks!


o.. my setup because some will ask

amd X2 4400+
Asus A8N-E
2 Gigs Corsair Ram
Ati X850-PE
WD 10,000 rpm SATA Master
Seagate 200g 7,200rpm Slave

sorry- that was too long
--
Derek

my main concern is to have the boot menu come up each time i restart my computer.

check your boot.ini (see the contents by running msconfig) on both OS's and edit them to include both options (it sounds like one of them already has 2 entries)

see this on editing the boot.ini on XP http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=289022

(I assume by x64 you mean windows XPPRO 64 bit edition, if not and you mean some 64 bit linux (I recommend Ubuntu;)) its a different matter)

yes.. xp pro 64bit edition

/*xp 64bit ed*/

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /usepmtimer

/*xp pro.*/

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
zzzmulti(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

so a few questions-

1. can i change both boot.ini's to read like this?

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
zzzmulti(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

2. what is this? -> /usepmtimer

3. does (1)partition(1)
(1)partition(2)
(the numbers 1 and 2 that come after partition) select the order of the drives or just the order of each line of code is placed in the .txt file?

thanks firepages-

ok.. i changed it to this

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Professional x64 Edition" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect
zzzmulti(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect

then i reinstalled xp pro..


i installed some drivers and everthing was great and then i ****ed something up...

i went system propertives> advanced tab> settings

at the top of the screen there is an optiong to change default OS.. so i canged it because xp pro was coming up in the boot list ahead of xp pro 64bit and when i resstarted it chenged their order but now xp pro is giving me an error message again.. sigh

how do i fix this? -both boot.inis appear to be correct- what did i do wrong?