Dual booting two copies of XP Pro on same workstation

[Velox]

I am having trouble with a new install of Windows XP Pro. I had some corrupt files in my old installation, which I have on hardrive G of my computer. This prevented me from booting Windows XP, and for various reasons I won't go into I was forced to do a new install of XP on my C drive. Well, my old version is still there, and the two versions of Windows are on two physically separate HD's, but I cannot access the old install. I am trying to avoid having to reinstall several hundred programs that I have already intalled on the old version. I think the corrupt files are fixed, but how do I configure the boot.ini to boot to the old install? I used the syntax multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Old install" /fastdetect , and I get an error message telling me that hal.dll needs to be reinstalled, but I did that and it's not the problem.

 

[rwise2112]

In the BOOT.INI file, the disk(0) is indicating the first hard drive.

To choose the second hard drive, change disk(0) to disk(1). The partition(1) entry may have to be changed to the number of the partition on the 2nd hard drive. partition(0) for the first partition, partition(1) for the 2nd, etc.

 

[Shaith]

I know this isn't the answer you're looking for, but having experienced this myself, I can honestly say you'll be saving yourself time and effort by reinstalling those applications on the new XP installation and simply deleting the old installation. You can copy things over, program settings, stored e-mail, etc, before you wipe the old one once and for all, but a clean install will do you wonders.

 

[Velox]

Okay, thanks. I'm prepared to reinstall. But I've experienced this before as well. I would like to know how to fix this problem if it happens again.

What I changed the boot.ini file to is this: multi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Microsoft Windows XP Professional Old install" /fastdetect

Now that should be right, but I get the error message:
Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could bit read from selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware.

Is this a problem with the boot sector in on that physical drive? I'm wondering if it will help if I run fixmbr...