HD Failure - What the best way to replace?

T

Tetleys2

Member
Thanks for a great software!

I had a dual boot system going.....Windows 7 (Boot drive) on a sata drive plugged into my raid 1 slot (IDE setup) , and XP on an IDE. (Thanks to this forum, I was able to install 7 after XP and then move the original MBR from xp to 7 without any problems!).
Anyway......just recently the IDE XP drive totally failed. I have a new WD drive coming in the mail, but its another sata drive that I will have to plug into my raid 2 slot. (the motherboard pins are broken on the standard sata slots).

My question is.......What is the best way to install XP OS on the new drive without messing anything up? I still have the original dual boot options (but the XP drive is no longer there). If I start in 7 and start the install from there, will it screw the boot record of 7? Should I unhook any drives except the new one and do a clean XP install directly? Will the current Easybcd dual options work once the new drive is setup? I want to keep 7 as the boot drive.

Thanks for any input!!!
 
You will have to install XP normally. Then you will have to use the same steps that you used previously to restore the BCD. Then remove the entry for XP and create a new entry for the new XP that is installed.

If you leave the old entry you will not be able to boot to XP as it wont be the proper path. Just follow the same steps you did previously and you should get a working dual boot again.
 
So...first step is to remove the existing xp entry in Easy BCD.
second step is to install XP on the new drive In some threads I have read that if you install XP after 7, then it rewrites the mbr and boots into XP and 7 will "disappear".....so to avoid this, it would be better to install without 7 drive hooked up.....right? Just trying to get things clear in my head to avoid problems before I start!!!!
 
You can do it either way really. If you leave the drive hooked up with Win7 on it, you just insert the Win7 disk and get the BCD back. Then you go back into Win7 and remove/replace the XP entry.

Or you can remove the drive, install XP, install the drive and do the same thing. Remove/replace the XP entry.

So it can be done either way. It just comes down to which way will be easier for you.
 
Back
Top