Member Avatar for mixxi shunt

Is it possible to istall a 2nd HD with a seperate install of XP? I am trying to avoid having to save old data to CD from old HD but effectively have a clean XP instal on the 2nd HD. I dont need to know how just yet, just whever it is possible with no conflicts. I know I will need two seperate copies of XP (?)

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Short answer and licensing note for : yes, you can run an independent XP installation on a second physical disk. Whether you need a separate, second license depends on the type of your existing copy — retail licenses are generally transferable, OEM copies are usually tied to the original machine. Check your Certificate of Authenticity (COA) or purchase paperwork to confirm which you have before proceeding.

If the goal is to preserve the old environment without juggling two boots, consider converting the old physical installation into a virtual machine. The Sysinternals tool Disk2vhd can make a VHD of a running XP system, and that VHD runs in VirtualBox or VMware. That approach keeps software and settings intact and avoids hardware-compatibility headaches when booting older Windows on newer hardware. Disk2vhd: https://learn.microsoft.com/sysinternals/downloads/disk2vhd
VirtualBox: https://www.virtualbox.org/wiki/Downloads

A common pitfall with fresh XP installs on modern machines is storage controller support. XP's setup may not see drives if the motherboard is using AHCI/RAID modes and drivers are missing. Options are to enable legacy/compatibility mode in the BIOS, provide storage drivers during setup (the legacy F6 method), or build an XP installer with integrated drivers using slipstream tools.

Practical cautions: XP is out of support and is vulnerable online — isolate it behind a firewall or keep it off the internet where possible. Make full disk images of both drives before any changes; tools like Clonezilla are helpful for safe rollback. For managing or repairing boot entries without manual tinkering, EasyBCD is a simple GUI option. Finally, and raised valid boot and data concerns above — the virtualization route or careful driver planning will address those while keeping your old files accessible.

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Member Avatar for mjdodd

I presume yes it is! Normally the master boot record (on the primary hard disk)tells windows at boot up where to find the operating system.I doubt if you can add a second direction for another windows onto the microsoft MBR (master boot record) However there are a number of other types of boot menu programs that will do the job and allow you to boot different operating system (eg GRUB which does a linux / windows boot) but you may have to buy such a boot menu program.
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Member Avatar for gerbil

Yes, it is possible. You could simply clone the old installation, that is, the drive it resides upon, to your new hdd, but that would take across all the clutter of old files etc. Advantage is.. no need to repeat updates. Other option is to freshly install XP to your new drive and update it... it REQUIRES disconnecting the old hdd while you install and first start the new OS but afterward it is no problem to run the new OS [it will give itself the C: letter as homedrive] with the old hdd connected [it will, for itself, reassign the drive letter of the old C: drive]. You would have to validate the new XP using your old licence which in turn would be invalidated. Copy across files you want.
Cloning means no need for validation because it's the same installation, just moved, and you can run the two independently [not a lot of point to doing that, though].
I find that by judiciously using a few softwares that an XP installation will run cleanly indefinitely... CCleaner, Mydefrag and Pagedefrag. Put files that change often onto a seperate drive [all temp inet files/folders for all browsers, system temp folders, download locations etc.

Edited by gerbil because: n/a
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