Rendering XP Unbootable...

[Ron]

I want to take a bootable HD, currently dual booting with Windows XP Home and
Windows 98SE and make it a slave drive in another computer so I can access
the data on this drive...what files/folders do I delete to render these two
operating systems unbootable in the new computer?

 

[Jerry]

If you make it a slave drive to another drive which is the boot drive in
that computer then there is nothing you'll have to remove - the BIOS should
'see' the 'new' drive and the system should just boot with no problems.

 

[Ron]

-- Thanks for the reply, Jerry

Just to make sure I am understanding you correctly, there is absolutely no
chance of the host computer booting from either of the two OS's on the Slave
drive and corrupting the boot drive?

Ron

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Not unless you do a lot of copying of boot files to the primary drive. Just
the fact that there are OS boot files on the drive is insufficient for it to
boot the system without further work. The MBR on C: is not even looking for
boot files on your (now) data drive.

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

-- Thanks for the reply, Jerry

Just to make sure I am understanding you correctly, there is absolutely no
chance of the host computer booting from either of the two OS's on the
Slave
drive and corrupting the boot drive?

Ron

Since you want absolute certainty - I have seen systems that
booted off a slave drive. If you want this certainty then you
should do this:
1. While WinXP is up and running:
- Unhide c:\ntldr and c:\ntdetect.com.
- Rename them to ntldr.bad and ntdetect.bad
This will prevent the disk from booting in any machine.
2. Connect it to the other WinXP machine and do your work.
3. While it is still connected to the other machine, reverse
the actions of Step 1.
4. Return the disk to its own PC.

 

[Ron]

There will be no "copying of boot files to the primary drive" for my part, so
I that should not be a problem. Thanks for your input, Colin.

On a related note, perhaps requiring a new thread [?], will I be able to
see/access the data that resides on the now slave drive from both the WINXP
and WIN98 partitions?

 

[Ron]

Thanks for your input Pegasus, but since the drive was dual boot with both XP
and 98, should I not need to do something similar to 98?

If your response to that is "yes," if I follow your instructions regarding
XP, will the computer now boot into 98 allowing me to "disable" it?

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Thanks for your input Pegasus, but since the drive was dual boot with both
XP
and 98, should I not need to do something similar to 98?

Assuming that you use the native WinXP boot loader
(with c:\boot.ini containing the selection to boot into
WinXP or into Win98), you do not need to do anything
about the Win98 boot. It's all handled by ntldr and ntdetect.com.

If your response to that is "yes," if I follow your instructions regarding
XP, will the computer now boot into 98 allowing me to "disable" it?

No, it won't. As I said in my first reply, after you have
renamed the two boot files, the disk will become unbootable
until you restore the original names.

 

[Ron]

Thanks Pegasus and to all the others who took their time to read and respond
to my Post...I think I am good to go!

 

[Colin Barnhorst]

Only if the file format is FAT32. Win98 cannot see NTFS.

There will be no "copying of boot files to the primary drive" for my part,
so
I that should not be a problem. Thanks for your input, Colin.

On a related note, perhaps requiring a new thread [?], will I be able to
see/access the data that resides on the now slave drive from both the
WINXP
and WIN98 partitions?