Old hard drive as slave with OS installed Win XP Home

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AuthorizedUser

Good afternoon;

I installed a new hard drive over the week-end and
installed Windows XP Pro on it. It has two partitions.

Now I want to install my old hard drive as a slave with
Windows XP Home still in tact. The new drive is working
fine.
When I removed the old drive, it also was working fine.

I have a couple of questions at this point.

1. If all I do is hook the old drive as a slave, can I
boot from this drive also, with all my files and programs
still in tact? (I.E. Dual Boot.)

The new drive is set at Cable Select and on the black
terminal. The old drive is also set at cable select and I
intend to put it on the grey terminal.

2. The old drive and Win XP Home OS came with my Dell
computer. It was installed by Dell and all I have is a
restore CD.

Last week my motherboard was "fried" and I went to a
barebones system. I could not just replace the motherboard
because the Dell case would not fit any available. I was
able to use all my other components. CPU, RAM, PCI and AGP
cards, etc. When the technician installed the old hard
drive and booted up, It would not except the OS and we had
to call Microsoft and get another license number in
exchange for the one that came with the original computer
since the changes were major.

I brought it home and all was working fine. My intention
before the MB problem was to install a larger hard drive
and use this one as a slave.

My second question is: when I put this old hard drive in
my system as a slave, will it recognize it as another
major change and not except it, or can I use the second
license number we obtained from Microsoft if I am prompted
to enter a number? There was no problem when it was a
master drive on the new Motherboard after the replacement.

Thanks in advance. I plan to put the old drive in this
week end. There are files on there I still need to access
or I would just fdisk it and format it completely.
 
YES YOU CAN if your motherboard will let you boot off IDE1
instead of IDE0. You would have to select the HD you want
to boot from. My MB has a boot menu, and I can select
from there.
 
So does mine. That's why I was asking. I believe I can select the settings
on start up in the Bios.
But regardless of weather I boot from slave or master, I should still be
able to access my folders and files on the slave? Is this correct?
 
There are two contingencies in order to be able to boot off both. First
off, both installations must have been installed on the current hardware
setup otherwise you are going to need to repair the installation to make
it work on the new components. Second, you will need to edit the
boot.ini file for the new drive with XP (your boot drive). You want to
add this line to the end:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Media Center
Edition" /fastdetect
 
OK.

I believe I have the first condition satisfied. The old hard drive was
installed on this computer and the new master drive was installed also.

I am not too clear on the second. Does this mean that both drives and OS
each have their own boot.ini file? And the only one I need to edit is the
one for the new drive?

Before I do any of this, is it possible to just connect the old as a slave
and access my files as if it were a storage drive?

Thanks
 
Hello

Yes if the drive is setup as a slave you can access the files
but you can't boot to a slave drive.

Alvin
 
Thanks;

I will connect it within the next couple of days and see
what I have. I may not need to set it up to boot to XP
Home.
 
You can too boot off a slave. I'm not sure where Alvin is going with
that. When you connect the other hard drive as a slave, you should be
able to access all data on the drive just like a storage drive. You may
need to follow this KB Article if you run into Access Denied problems as
NTFS Security may block you from accessing certain folders:
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;823306

As for the boot.ini file. You only need to edit the one on your new hard
drive as that is the system partition (the one the computer reads to
determine where to boot from). You need to make sure to add this line
at the end so you can select the old OS:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Windows XP Home Edition"
/fastdetect

And before, sorry I left my MCE title in there, but you can type
whatever you want between the " " because it doesn't affect anything but
the name you select from.
 
Thanks Alvin and Nathan

I am going to put the old Hard drive in this week end. First I will only
access it as a storage and get some crucial files. Then I will edit the boot
ini and try booting. I have read all the info on the boot file and all I
have to do is remove the protection, add the line to the end and re protect
it. Of course back it up in case.

Thanks again Guys.
 
FYI

Installed old hard drive as slave last night. No Problem getting to files.
Then went in and edited Boot.ini file after saving original on disc. Had a
slight problem.
When I re-started, and was taken to the Startup menu for multi-boot systems.
The second OS showed /Windows only. When I chose that OS, it took me back
to the multi-boot. It could not find the OS files. When I went back into XP
Pro and looked at my disk management I discovered that Dell had originally
configured the old Hard Drive to contain 36mb of Fat 32 on Partition 1.
Once I went back into the Boot.ini file and changed the last line from
partition 1 to partition 2, it worked. Now I can boot in Windows Pro or
Windows Home edition.
Now you are probably thinking, why do you want two OSs that are virtuall the
same. There are slight differences and I still have programs that I use that
came with the Dell System, motherboard, that I am prevented from instaling
on the new motherboard and OS since it is no longer recognized as a the
original Dell system.
Anyway, I want to thank everyone for aiding me and providing valued
information. It made this project, for a novice like myself an easy one.

Regards
Phil
 
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