2 Hard disks, 2 bootable copies of XP wanted

Currently we have 1 formatted hard Disk (2nd HD), and another other with windows + programs (1st HD).

We want to format both and start from scratch. Trouble is we have some programs that we simply can't install again (VERY old programs). What we want to do is to install windows XP on the 2nd harddisk and copy the program's files across and see if it works. If it does work then we can format the first hard disk and start again, safe in that knowledge (or continue to use the 2nd HD).


I've formatted the 2nd harddisk using the windows XP cd when installing windows then installed it OK (apparently).

But when i change the boot sequence in the BIOS to use disk D: first (the 2nd harddisk) it says:

<windows dir>/system32/Some.File is missing.

I have checked and it IS there but i don't know what could be wrong. I guess the windows directory variable wasn't set correctly?


I have also tried editing the boot.ini from windows XP on HD 1, so i have duel boot, but if i try XP from HD2 using the created boot screen it crashes when loading up (gets further than booting straight from 2nd HD though).



Any help would be much appreciated. :)

I think your problem is with the boot.ini's. As the boot.ini on your disk will look something link this:

multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows 2000 Professional" /fastdetect

If the partitions on your disk have been changed and/or the physiccal locations of the drives have changed then the entry in your boot.ini will be pointing to the wrong disk.

You can either edit the boot.ini on the original system or swap the drives around so as the old XP hard disk is in its original IDE slot.

Ok, thanks i'll give it a try.