Temporary Dual-Boot XP & XP

[kjfrey55]

I have two hard drives in my system. The first one has the original XP on
it. But through various experiments, and a couple of virus attacks, it
really started getting corrupt. I installed a fresh copy of XP on the new
drive in a dual-boot setup so that I could still run the old version for some
programs that I no longer have disks for. The new version will be my
workhorse and I'll only need the old one now and then.

The c: drive is on the old HD and in Disk Manager is showing as the System
partition. The d: drive is the first partition on the new HD and showing as
the boot partition. So it seems that the old disk is controlling the
dual-boot setup. My concern is that if the old HD ever dies, that I will not
be able to boot to the new HD and would have to start from scratch and
completely reinstall everything all over.

Is there a way to have the new HD contain both the System and Boot
partitions so that I won't have to do that if the old HD dies, but still be
able to boot to the old XP on occasion?

 

[philo]

I have two hard drives in my system. The first one has the original XP on
it. But through various experiments, and a couple of virus attacks, it
really started getting corrupt. I installed a fresh copy of XP on the new
drive in a dual-boot setup so that I could still run the old version for some
programs that I no longer have disks for. The new version will be my
workhorse and I'll only need the old one now and then.

The c: drive is on the old HD and in Disk Manager is showing as the System
partition. The d: drive is the first partition on the new HD and showing as
the boot partition. So it seems that the old disk is controlling the
dual-boot setup. My concern is that if the old HD ever dies, that I will not
be able to boot to the new HD and would have to start from scratch and
completely reinstall everything all over.

Is there a way to have the new HD contain both the System and Boot
partitions so that I won't have to do that if the old HD dies, but still be
able to boot to the old XP on occasion?

As long as the second installation is on an active primary partition,
then it can be made bootable

Right now you can have a look in disk management

(right click on "My Computer" and select "manage")

I am sure it is a primary partition but you might as well confirm now...
and you might as well mark it "active" now...it will not hurt anything.

To make it bootable,
you will need to copy the hidden files in the root directory of your C:
drive over to your 2nd drive


boot.ini
ntdetect.com
ntldr



Now, if the first drive is removed, the second one should boot.

Note: The drive letter of the second drive will not change from what it is
now.
If it's presently the E: drive (for example) it will stay that way.
It won't hurt anything and it cannot be changed to C:

(Unless the drive is totally deleted and you reinstall your OS)


Also note, that your boot loader will still reference the installation on
the removed drive

though boot.ini can be manually edited in advance if you wish...
there is a possibility of error.

The safe way to do it...is to boot up
then run "msconfig"

then go to the boot.ini tab and have it check boot paths
and let it remove the invalid entry.

You might as well do all that now
and test it so that when the day comes for you to remove the original
drive...
you will be all good to go.