Hard Drive troubleshooting help needed

[Stoneman]

I've managed to corrupt my XP operating system to the point where
I get disk boot failure and don't know what to do to go forward. I
was instructed by Microsoft to load a parallel O/S but I got into this
loop where it won't give me the option to see the (2) O/Ss and only
wants to reload another operating system. I bought a new hard disk
to try loading a new O/S on it, then trying to save the data on the
old C:/ drive. What I don't know is:

What happens when I disconnect the old drive? then create the new O/S?
Can I merely attach it as the slave drive then retrieve the data?
Won't I have a conflict with two C drives? or do I need to do something more?

Could I just hook up the old drive to another XP system, which I have
and then try to retrieve the data in some way?

I've built a couple of systems but it's not that tricky with new HDs and
new O/Ss. This is out of my league and I could use some help. I'm trying
to save the data because my daughter has a bunch of photos on there,
Yes, I could reformat and start fresh but I'll be sleeping on the sofa
after that ;(


Thanks in advance.

 

[tk11]

What will happen if you connect the old drive as slave is the old drive will be assigned a different letter (d. The new drive will still be c:, there will be no conflict. You will not be able to run most software on the drive(including windows) but you will be able to copy any data off the drive.

 

[Stoneman]

Thanks, TK11, I'll give it a shot.