Creating A Dual Boot environment for XP Home Edition

[johnr02]

I have a corrupted XP Home system on my primary drive which I am currently
limping on. What I like to do is create a clean copy of XP home on my USB
external drive. I have read a lot about creating a dual boot environment BUT
I honestly have to admit I am confused? Can I create a clean copy of XP home
on that external drive of mine while keeping my corrupted XP on the orginal
hard drive?? What procedure I have to follow? I planned to use the transfer
wizard to copy my e-mails and my favorites and a bunch of other stuff to the
clean system and run from there.

Not your Greatest Technician please make any answer understanding to the
novice. Thanks for any help!!!!

 

[John John (MVP)]

You can't install or boot a Windows installation off a USB drive, this
is an unsupported installation. You can search the internet and you
will find recipes and postings by some who have made this work but the
results are always less than spectacular.

Your best bet would be to run the Transfer Wizard on your "limping"
installation and save the file, then remove the disk from the computer
and switch it with the one in the USB enclosure, put the "sick" Windows
in the USB enclosure and put the one from the enclosure in the computer
and do a clean Windows installation.

John