Installed XP to USB drive for second computer, now main won't boot.

[ArtemisKitty]

I had connected a laptop HDD via USB in an attempt to get XP on it for
the purpose of using it in a custom PC for my car that I've put
together (it doesn't have a CD drive at the moment, as I've slimmed
this thing down as much as possible to fit into a custom back shell for
the LCD screen, basically building a battery-less laptop for the car as
an MP3 player. Currently booting linux via a CF card, but I want XP for
GPS navigation.) - Anywho, the main drive in the PC had WinXP Pro
installed as well. It's now not recognizing it for boot purposes, but
gives me an error message saying the boot drive is missing, etc etc,
asking me to remove any newly installed drives etc. I tried running the
autorepair, no dice. Checked boot.ini, it looks fine. Renamed it just
in case, no go. Is there something modified in the actual MBR during an
XP install? Interestingly enough, if I connect this drive via USB it's
fine, if I install it into the machine, unplugging my media drive (Tv
episodes and the like) it boots fine, but in the carpc, no go. Ahh
well, I'll get an external DVD drive later. But now my main PC is not
booting. This is particularly bad as it's also my gaming rig and main
multimedia PC. Guess I should have unplugged EVERYTHING before running
the XP install CD. Any suggestions?

 

[Rock]

I had connected a laptop HDD via USB in an attempt to get XP on it for
the purpose of using it in a custom PC for my car that I've put
together (it doesn't have a CD drive at the moment, as I've slimmed
this thing down as much as possible to fit into a custom back shell for
the LCD screen, basically building a battery-less laptop for the car as
an MP3 player. Currently booting linux via a CF card, but I want XP for
GPS navigation.) - Anywho, the main drive in the PC had WinXP Pro
installed as well. It's now not recognizing it for boot purposes, but
gives me an error message saying the boot drive is missing, etc etc,
asking me to remove any newly installed drives etc. I tried running the
autorepair, no dice. Checked boot.ini, it looks fine. Renamed it just
in case, no go. Is there something modified in the actual MBR during an
XP install? Interestingly enough, if I connect this drive via USB it's
fine, if I install it into the machine, unplugging my media drive (Tv
episodes and the like) it boots fine, but in the carpc, no go. Ahh
well, I'll get an external DVD drive later. But now my main PC is not
booting. This is particularly bad as it's also my gaming rig and main
multimedia PC. Guess I should have unplugged EVERYTHING before running
the XP install CD. Any suggestions?

Your post is hard to follow. You talk about "connecting a laptop drive by
USB in order to get XP on it". Connecting it to what? In order to get XP
on what? How did you try to get XP on it? Do you mean you tried to boot a
computer by means of an USB connected hard drive on which was installed XP?

Or do you mean you hooked up a drive by USB and using an XP installation CD
tried to install XP on this external drive, then hooked it up as an internal
drive to a laptop and it wouldn't boot? If that's the case, that won't work
either. XP's installation is tailored to the machine it's in when it's
installed and won't generally boot another machine.

Also XP can't boot from an external USB connected drive.

If it's none of the above then clarify what exactly you tried.

 

[lurkswithin]

1)you can't hot swap xp into another pc as it won't work. It has to be
used in the computer it was installed on....
2)Also a major issue would be installing home version after pro
version...the set up should have warned you that you were trying to
install an older version over a newer installation and shut down.
3) The mobo must be able to support usb boot capabilities..