Repair Dual-Boot XP + XP

[allbenatt]

I have two PCs (and my friend has yet another) that dual-boot XP only - in other words, XP on the C: partition and also on the E: partition. l believe the boot loader is currently on C: only and is also used when booting into E:

It would be great if Repair Dual-Boot could eliminate the OS from the C: partition while enabling the PC to boot from the E:    Perhaps it already is capable of that but it's not mentioned in the description of the tool.  Please advise if anyone knows for sure.

[boyans.net]

Dual-boot Repair is based around BCD (Boot Configuration Data) and Windows boot manager - Windows Vista and later.

It can write "automagically" boot records and fixes BCD, boot.ini, ntldr and ntdetect.com on first disk active partition.

In you case where booting is based on XP ntldr and boot.ini you can use Dual-boot Repair only for manual repair steps.

What you want is moving/copy Windows XP boot files to another disk.

1) The destination disk(second disk) MUST have an active partition.

 - Use Disk Management option in Dual-boot Repair tool to mark a partition as active if not already marked.

 - then map both active partitions on both disks to drive letters (if not already mapped).

2) Use "Repair MBR & boot records" to write MBR and boot record to second disk - select active partition on second disk and MBR.

3) On active partition destination disk you need ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini

 - you can open an admin console using "Admin console -> bcdedit" (bcdedit will fail as you don't have BCD)

 - now you can copy ntldr, ntdetect.com and boot.ini from current first disk to second disk.

The file boot.ini in Windows XP which holds boot related information about where to look for Windows system files - where is the corresponding "\Windows" folder - uses ARC paths. See "Dual-boot Windows XP/NT - ARC Paths, drives and boot.ini" for explanation and details.

Pretty complex manual steps if you are not an experienced user.

Hope this explanation can help you.

[allbenatt]

Thanks for the info, @boyans.net.  I should have made it clear (when I stated "the C: partition" and "the E: partition") that they are on the same physical disk. My laptop has only one HDD.  Does that change the instructions you provided?

Thanks again.

[boyans.net]

The boot sequence is the same for one or more disks.

1. The MBR of first disk is loaded and executed.

2. MBR code loads boot sector (PBR - partition boot record) of active partition on first disk.

3. Boot sector code loads ntldr placed on active partition first disk.

4. ntldr reads boot.ini which holds boot configuration data and then displays boot menu

    or continues with loading kernel from folder specified in boot.ini (assumed is only one OS specified in boot.ini)

So the answer to question is yes (substitute "second disk" with "first disk").