Killing an older Win XP installation

[WhipperSnapper]

I have three hard drives in my desktop computer, two spindle IDE drives and one new SSD. I've just installed Win XP SP3 on the SSD and the two spindle drives are disconnected. One of the spindle drives has an older (and messed up) Win XP installation. I don't want to format either of the spindle drives; I just want them to become data drives.

If I plug the two spindle drives in and boot up, will I have a choice of which installation to use? My goal is to remove all vestiges of the older XP installation from the spindle drive. Do I need to unplug my SSD, plug in the spindle drives, and then do something to prevent the spindle drive installation from loading when I boot up?

Would simply deleting the Windows folder on the spindle drive effectively remove all elements of the XP installation on the spindle drive?

Will there be any sorts of Master/Slave jumper issues on the spindle drives now that the Master will no longer be used as boot drive? They're still sharing the same IDE cable.

 

[Bubbaleone]

The "C:\boot.ini" file determines the boot sequence in XP. Both the new and old XP's likely have identical boot.ini files. You'll need to edit the boot.ini file on the SSD drive for "dual-boot"

This is a typical boot.ini file but yours will be similar:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /pae

I'd suggest before connecting the old XP that you boot the SSD, open the boot.ini file with Notepad, edit the name to distinguish it from the old XP and add the second line for the old XP installation, then save. Note the change on the last line:

[boot loader]
timeout=30
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional SSD" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /pae
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINDOWS="Microsoft Windows XP Professional" /noexecute=optin /fastdetect /pae

Now when you boot with both drives connected you'll know which is which. Not being the boot drive anymore has no effect on jumper position.

 

[WhipperSnapper]

Thanks for your help. I've got the two spindle drives plugged in now. The biggest thing I did was to check the boot priority in BIOS which defaulted to having the SSD be the top priority anyway. I did mess around with the boot.ini file and created a safe boot option (with a pick time of 5 seconds).

However, I wasn't able to get the old installation on the spindle drive to load up, which is OK. I used the same line as for the SSD, but set rdisk to (1). The system seemed to recognize that installation but for some reason it just wouldn't load up. Maybe it didn't like having an additional SSD.

It's no problem at all since I can now access all of my old files and reinstall the programs I want over time.