Dual boot files?

I used to be able to boot my SATA HD, but then I cloned a SSD hard drive and now the boot menu, that I used to have does not appear. I have Windows 10 Pro + Windows XP Pro (SP3) on the drive 0.
Asus motherboard, 16GB RAM
I used EaseUS Partition Master Pro and this is the same software I used to do the exact same clone operation on my wife's desktop about 6-8 months ago. She still has the menu to dual boot.

So I went in and deleted all the partitions on the USB drive enclosure that had the SSD 1TB hard drive, and tried to use Avenquest Partition manager to clone the HD. Issue came up as it rebooted, looking a lot like Linux. Needless to say, it ended up corrupting the boot load, and I had to boot from a USB drive that had EaseUS WinPE system on it and repaired the Windows 10 boot.

Now it boots, but does not have the menu at the beginning of the startup after BIOS that gave me an option to boot into Windows 10 (default) or Windows XP Pro.

I remember some years back editing the file, to say Windows XP Pro rather than the generic one of "Boot earlier version of Windows"

Seems like there are 2 files that are needed, but don't know what they are named.
So asking what are the 2 boot files? I could find them on my wife's computer, copy them to a USB drive and put them into my desktop and I think that would fix it. :?? Possibly.

PiKo said:

Without the use of easyBCD I would not be able to set up a dual boot.
With easyBCD I had no difficulties.

Thank you for that info!! I looked in my "Downloads" folder and found Easy BCD ver 2.3. I went to NeoSmart Technologies website and downloaded the newer 2.4 version. Since I am working with a SSD drive, on Windows 10, not sure if it makes a difference on versions, but sometimes later versions are updated to work with newer drives and systems UEIF etc.
Will have to try it on the SSD I just cloned, after it boots up (hopefully with no issues), before I donate to the software. If it works, it is worth something, other than just a free download.

Will check back in here if it works to continue or mark as solved.
If anything, it gives someone else with similar issues a clue where to start.

Gibbs said:

Thank you for that info!! I looked in my "Downloads" folder and found Easy BCD ver 2.3. I went to NeoSmart Technologies website and downloaded the newer 2.4 version. Since I am working with a SSD drive, on Windows 10, not sure if it makes a difference on versions, but sometimes later versions are updated to work with newer drives and systems UEIF etc.
Will have to try it on the SSD I just cloned, after it boots up (hopefully with no issues), before I donate to the software. If it works, it is worth something, other than just a free download.

Will check back in here if it works to continue or mark as solved.
If anything, it gives someone else with similar issues a clue where to start.

EasyBCD has been working for me for probably years now. 3 different Win 10 Pro partitions. All UEFI, but that's not an issue in practice Recommended.

Easy BCD solved the issue of my cloned SSD hard drive not being able to dual boot. Now the menu appears at the start up. With the software, it was easy and straight forward to add another OS to the menu and to make Windows 10 the default. I set it at 15 seconds for any user interaction.

Gibbs said:

Easy BCD solved the issue of my cloned SSD hard drive not being able to dual boot. Now the menu appears at the start up. With the software, it was easy and straight forward to add another OS to the menu and to make Windows 10 the default. I set it at 15 seconds for any user interaction.

+1 That's exactly what EasyBCD does. :)

Well, I tried booting into Windows XP (SP3) sort of worked. Windows logo came up and at one point it showed the version of XP on the lower right screen and then went to a Windows Logo again... some screen blinking, but never loaded into the desktop. So I turned off the Desktop after about 20 minutes, and when rebooting it went into disk repair of the drive where Windows XP resides and some others. I cancelled disk repair after it got done with another drive in the desktop and it booted into Windows 10
I still got the dual OS screen with the blue background, but choose Windows 10 for the OS. which is up and running now.
Not sure I want to try that again. I may not be able to get the Windows 10 booting back again if something goes haywire.

Does it help to go into Advanced and choose Windows XP and then for drive, put in "F" as that is what it is in Windows Explorer? Currently it is set to C