Forcing XP Pro to install onto a particular drive

[SteveH]

Hello

At the moment, if I go to my normal Home edition, then My Computer | Manage,
I can see, in Disk Management, the two disks (both healthy). One (C drive)
contains my Home edition and, at the moment, the other new one is formatted
but empty. Both are NTFS.

Similarly, in My Computer, I can see my CD drive etc plus two hard drives,
the one which holds Windows Home and the other is empty.

In the BIOS, I can see Primary drive (Maxtor HDD 0) and Secondary drive
Hitachi, also HDD 0 and both set to Auto.

I now wish to install XP Pro on my new secondary (F) drive. I have tried to
force Win XP Pro onto this new drive by removing the cables from my C drive
and attaching only my new F drive so that the installation process can only
see my new drive, but I get an 'NTDLR is missing' message at startup.

The reason I do not simply allow Win XP Pro to run and install is that I am
not asked which Physical Hard Disc Drive you wish to install XP onto, and I
am concerned it will overwrite my Home edition.

What else might I try to ensure XP Pro sits neatly in its own drive and
averts any possibility of overwriting my XP Home edition?

Many thanks again for any help.

Steve

 

[Jim]

Hello

At the moment, if I go to my normal Home edition, then My Computer |
Manage,
I can see, in Disk Management, the two disks (both healthy). One (C drive)
contains my Home edition and, at the moment, the other new one is
formatted
but empty. Both are NTFS.

Similarly, in My Computer, I can see my CD drive etc plus two hard drives,
the one which holds Windows Home and the other is empty.

In the BIOS, I can see Primary drive (Maxtor HDD 0) and Secondary drive
Hitachi, also HDD 0 and both set to Auto.

I now wish to install XP Pro on my new secondary (F) drive. I have tried
to
force Win XP Pro onto this new drive by removing the cables from my C
drive
and attaching only my new F drive so that the installation process can
only
see my new drive, but I get an 'NTDLR is missing' message at startup.

The reason I do not simply allow Win XP Pro to run and install is that I
am
not asked which Physical Hard Disc Drive you wish to install XP onto, and
I
am concerned it will overwrite my Home edition.

What else might I try to ensure XP Pro sits neatly in its own drive and
averts any possibility of overwriting my XP Home edition?

Many thanks again for any help.

Steve

During installation, connect the drive that you wish to use in the master
position.
Disconnect all other drives.
Jim

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

During installation, connect the drive that you wish to use in the master
position.
Disconnect all other drives.
Jim

It's been far too long since I installed XP on a different partition
than C: but I don't think I had to disconnect anything. I just selected
the desired partition during the install and everything worked fine. I
think disconnecting other drives is why the OP's install did not work.
I put the boot partition on the current C: drive which was on the wrong
drive after reinstalling the other drives. hdisk0 became hdisk1 after
the old drive was connected.

 

[Jim]

It's been far too long since I installed XP on a different partition than
C: but I don't think I had to disconnect anything. I just selected the
desired partition during the install and everything worked fine. I think
disconnecting other drives is why the OP's install did not work. I put the
boot partition on the current C: drive which was on the wrong drive after
reinstalling the other drives. hdisk0 became hdisk1 after the old drive
was connected.

I told him to install XP so as to make certain that the disk he wants to use
is the only one available.
Most of the time, the installation proceeds as you stated, but there is
always to odd time.
Jim

 

[Michael W. Ryder]

I told him to install XP so as to make certain that the disk he wants to use
is the only one available.
Most of the time, the installation proceeds as you stated, but there is
always to odd time.
Jim

I just don't think that will work for what he is trying to do. He wants
to have C: with XP Home and F: with XP Pro. Somewhere he is going to
have to edit the boot.ini file so that both options are available.

 

[Anteaus]

I sould suggest using a bootmanager such as xosl. Then, your selected boot
partition becomes the C: drive. A much better way to work.