Vista unable to dual boot with XP

[Rarchbol]

Hello readers. I have read fairly extensively regarding how to properly set up a partition/dual boot in vista, however BCDedit is giving me error messages when attempting to add new entries.

First off here is my specs....
HP Pavilion dv9000
AMD Athlon 64 x2 Dual-Core Processor TK-53
1GB ram
NVIDIA GeForce 6150
Windows Vista Home Premium Addition/Windows XP Pro SP2

I've been at this all day, its been frustrating to the point where I've backed up all data and been reformating to try and eliminate any possible errors. Anyway. My last attempt concluded as follows...
1. Deleted partitions created from last attempt, and reallocated space back onto main parition (Vista).
2. Reformated and restored to factory condition
3. Upon loading into fresh Vista, opened Computer Management>Storage>Disk Management
4. Shrunk primary ntfs partition containing fresh vista (C:) by 20gb
5. Used that entire 20gb unallocated space to create a simple volume partition with path F: (because D: is a third primary partition on HD containing OS recovery software and E: is the cd/dvd drive)
6. Within Computer Management, formatted F: drive as NTFS
7. Confirmed newly formatted F: partition listed as NTFS and as Healthy (primary partition)
8. Rebooted with XP install disk and installed XPsp2 to F:
9. Booted into XP, made my user, restarted
10. Booted up onto Vista install disk and ran command prompt, ran commands bootrec.exe /fixMBR and bootrec.exe /fixBOOT (both responded with no errors)
11. Exited from vista install disk, booted into Vista, opened BCDedit as administrator
12. Entered in command "bcdedit -set {ntldr} device partition=f:"

This is the same response im getting over and over..."An error occurred while attempting to reference the specified entry. The system cannot find the file specified."

So right now I can boot into Vista fine, but not XP even tho the partition is available....Anyone got any ideas?? This is driving me nuts and EasyBCD1.7 wasn't any help; I'd attempt to add an entry under type windows NT/2k/XP/2k3 but then the Drive box becomes grayed out and im unable to select the correct path (f:).

Someone Plz help!

cheers,
Ryan

[geeve]

Rarchbol,
I used the following tutorial with great success. http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_xp__stepbystep_guide_wi th_screenshots.htm (http://apcmag.com/how_to_dualboot_vista_with_xp__stepbystep_guide_wi th_screenshots.htm). Don't use GParted but do use Diskpart.
There is a tutorial where Vista is first and I could not get that to work. XP put some of the files on the Vista partition and then I got that error you got. However, when I put XP first it worked a charm. EasyBCD worked if XP was installed first. I found that if I set up the complete XP partition with all of the software then it would not "shrink". So set it up first and then go back and put on the antivirus, office etc...
Good Luck.