Make an XP hard drive or partition bootable?

[monkeysr]

Problem Summary: I have a drive with an XP installation on it. I want to make this drive bootable. It currently can not boot on its own, because the boot information was on another drive.





I currently have two hard drives:

G: and D:

G: contains nothing but my Windows "boot" files. It has no OS.

D: contains two XP installations, and important files. (three partitions on D: )



The problem:

G: has my necessary boot.ini file (which allows me two choose which of the two XP installations I want to boot from), as well as any other needed bootable files. (I don't know much about boot files)

Here is a screenshot of G:




D: has no boot.ini, and it is probably not currently bootable.

I would like to make D: bootable.

I would like to reformat G:, so I can install a different OS on it, possibly BeOS or Linux.



How can I make D: bootable, in a way that will guarantee that the XP installations and partitions on D: will remain intact?



Notes: My bios currently checks G: for boot information. I know where I can change this in my bios, so I assume that I could make the bios check D: instead.

I've never had much success with fixmbr and fixboot for some reason.(I probably haven't done it correctly in the past. Would these commands fix my problem?) Also, isn't there some danger of losing partitions when using these commands?

Is there any chance that I could copy the boot files from G: to D:? (Any suggestions greatly appreciated)





After thinking about it, I'm sure I will have to use a new boot.ini, which I will have to edit manually. (I often have to do this, as I switch out drives).

My biggest problem is that I just need to make D: bootable. G: will no longer have a Windows file system, and will be unable to have Windows boot information on it.

It seems that if one has multiple XP installations on the same machine, only ONE of these will actually be a bootable drive/partition.

All other installations are dependent on the sole bootable drive/partition, which I think is endlessly irritating. I wish that all XP installations were bootable.

If one deletes or loses the SOLE bootable installation, all other installations can not be booted.

[Xanex]

First of all try booting from D it wont hurt the disk. When you intsalled XP there would be some boot information.

2ndly try this:

Load up the XP cd as if you where to reinstall XP but instead goto the recovery console,

type "fixmbr" at the command prompt once you have entered the XP logon, its very simple once you get there very well laid out.

If either these work but you are still not able to choose the 2 OS's you can edit the boot ini
Control Panel -> system -> advanced -> start up and recovery


Note XP boot ini is very well hidden most programs can't find it