XP with dual hard drive (single boot)

[Guest]

My PC, running XP, had a hard drive crash last week. There was a bad block
in the operating system, but the rest of the data appears OK.

I had a new hard drive installed as the boot up drive. The computer now
boots to the new drive, “C:\†, and the old drive is now drive E:\.

When I try to run Microsoft Office on E:\ from the desktop (on c:\) it tells
me the application is not set up properly to be run from the operating system.

Questions:
1. Is there a way to have the XP operating system boot from C: but then
operate as if E: is the home drive and run all applications from the E:
drive? (How about the E: desktop?)
2. Can I copy the old Operating System files, MS Office, and Outlook files
from E: to C: to run the applications? Which files?

 

[Jerry]

1. No

2. You must reinstall all the programs that are on E: (forrmer C: - boot
drive). There are a myriad of options/settings and registry inclusions that
are not on the new drive that are required for Windows to correctly identify
things and, therefore, run these program.

3. If there is any data/backups/etc you want to keep that is presently on E:
move/copy it to the new drive. The drive has already caused you grief and
should not be used.

 

[Guest]

My PC, running XP, had a hard drive crash last week. There was a bad block
in the operating system, but the rest of the data appears OK.

I had a new hard drive installed as the boot up drive. The computer now
boots to the new drive, “C:\†, and the old drive is now drive E:\.

When I try to run Microsoft Office on E:\ from the desktop (on c:\) it tells
me the application is not set up properly to be run from the operating system.

Questions:
1. Is there a way to have the XP operating system boot from C: but then
operate as if E: is the home drive and run all applications from the E:
drive? (How about the E: desktop?)
2. Can I copy the old Operating System files, MS Office, and Outlook files
from E: to C: to run the applications? Which files?

Hi Bob,
If I understood this right, this which you trying to accomplish:
You have all the application/Programs on Drive E:\ and you have a bad block
your system cannot read from your old Drive and you installed the Operating
system on a new HDD without the Applications/Programs. am I right?.
Now you have two HDD with Two operating system on and you want to access
your Applications/Programs on E:\ drive from C:\, you created a short cut
and the shortcut not pointing to the path on E:\ drive it is pointing to C:\,
are we clear?, you can navigate to the E:\Program Files and look for the
App/Program and right click on the Icon and select send to Desktop as
Shortcut, does htis help?.
If I misunderstood this and you want to get your Files/docs from E:\ drive
to the C:\ yes you can copy the data from E:\ to where you want it on C:\ it
will take the path on C:\ and point to C:\ drive and work with app/program
designed to work with say like word Doc it will be opened with word
Application and so on..
Hope this what you are after.
nass

 

[Guest]

Nass,
Thanks for the reply. Jerry says that I can get to the data your way (using
E: in place of C: ) but not the programs. Those I have to reinstall. Do you
agree?

It sure would be nice if I could just copy from E: to C: and a lot faster.

Will Micorsoft Office have a problem with a second install of the same
serial number?

Jerry and Nass. Thanks again for your help.

 

[Jerry]

Installing Office again will not be a problem.

You cannot just copy the programs from E: to C: - they must be reinstalled
as I stated earlier.

Also, you can go here: http://www.neowin.net/forum/index.php?showforum=89
and download AutoPatcher for XP - it includes updates/patches/hotfixes
released after SP2 - makes it easier to do a fresh install.

 

[Guest]

Hi Bob,
Yes I do Agree, I was waiting to see your reply, you cannot copy Programs,
you need to install them to the new HDD.
You can copy Data, documents, Images..tec but not programs, that can happen
if you clone the HDD E:\ to C:\ without installing the OS on C:\ as the case
Now.
Install the XP Office suite and all other Software has been install on E:\
then you can copy the data to C:\ from E:\ and you can test to see if you can
access these Data from C:\ and all data is there then you can Safely Format
E:\ and use it as a Backup or to store data on it or save data/install
applications/programs on it.
Read here on File and |settings transfer:
http://www.aumha.org/win5/a/fast.php
HTH.
Good luck.
nass

 

[Guest]

Bob,

I did the exact same thing and I've found that some programs have to be
reinstalled but others can be run from the other drive (E). I used Tweak UI
and Folder Redirector to indicate where my data folders are. I moved my data
storage to another partition, but kept the Local Settings folder on the C
drive (your new drive). I reinstalled Microsoft and Norton Ghost for
example, but was able to leave most of my other software (Irfan, iTunes,
etc.). If you do boot back to your old drive however, you will get two (or
more) profiles going in each drive, and that gets very messy! You shouldn't
have any problem though with the serial numbers as you asked.
vkbaker