Windows XP SP3 missing boot files

Question one: Why would a systems boot files just disappear? I know the steps to fix it, but I want to understand how they could have disappeared in the first place.

Scenario:
Dell E520 Dimension running Windows XP SP3 fully updated.

Orange flashing light on power switch.
Diagnosed bad PSU and replaced the PSU.
On booting the boot files are all missing. Boot.ini ndldr, etc are all gone.
Bought a new PC and installed the old hard drive as a second drive.
Scanned the Seagate hard drive with SeaTools and the hard drive shows no errors.
Checkdisk shows no errors.

Question two:

Why does the Windows XP boot CD fail after loading the drivers?

Scenario
The new PC is a Dell XPS running two SSD drives in a striped raid array.
The old drive is being used as a secondary, but I would like to occasionally boot onto the old XP drive.
I changed the order of the boot drives and even marked the raid drives as none bootable and still the install CD crashes at the same point.

Question three:
Is the only way to recreate the boot files by running a recovery from the Windows XP CD?

Many thanks for any advice!

Jenny
 
You want to be able to boot into XP from both drives (RAID array and the old XP drive)? The RAID array is considered as 1 drive unless you partition it. Why don't you recover any important data off the old drive and remove it completely from the SSD system. The old drive will only slow things down
 
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