Dual boot two XP OSes on two HDDs

[gemac]

I have a PC with 2 HDD. One WinXP OS is already installed on one HDD, and the other WinXP OS is already installed on the second HDD from my old computer. I want to setup the dual boot choice so that I can choose which already installed HDD Win XP OS to start up ( ie at the pasword/user window slection screen) and have the option to boot from either one satisfactorily?

Cannot find much information on this for 2 already installed XP OSs on 2 separate HDDs. I have checked each HDD/XP OS separately so I know that each HDD and XP OS works properly as a stand alone, Any help gratefully received.

 

[Mark56]

You can use this to set up the boot manager: EasyBCD
Scroll to the bottom of the page for the Download button.

The problem you are going to have is with the XP that was installed on another PC. This will have all the wrong drivers installed on it and will most likely cause a lot of crashes and/or Blue Screens. You could spend some time removing all the drivers and I would recommend for the best performance that you do a format and clean install on that drive.

This tool Driver Sweeper may help to remove all the old drivers if you want to go down that road, it is mainly designed to remove the remnants left behind after a driver is uninstalled. If you do not clean all traces out of the system it could cause problems with stability, the choice is yours.

 

[gbhall]

I have checked each HDD/XP OS separately so I know that each HDD and XP OS works properly as a stand alone, Any help gratefully received.

Not checked each HDD on the same new PC, I suspect? As already stated by Mark56, you probably won't be able to do that due to hardware issues (unless the two PC's are very, very similar). Although you cannot actually run both of the XP installs, there is nothing you need to do to be able to access the old HDD while running the newer install. It should just appear as another drive letter, so you can happily copy the old data as required to the new install, then just use the older drive as a backup media.