I have two hard drives (40 gig) which I have decided to utilize differently. One disk will have all my stuff on it and the other one I will use to back up everything. Then if something goes wrong I can theoretically just switch disks and be back in business.

So I have started by reformatting the second disk and doing a clean install of Win XP. I understand that XP can only be booted from disk 0, but for the time being I am using a dual boot setup which works OK. Today I tried to take disk 0 offline and boot from disk 1 (making it the master drive) but it didn't work. I get a "boot disk failure" message. So it seems that I didn't do something I should have to make that disk bootable. I tried copying in all the files that I could see were required - command.com, IO.sys, MSDOS.sys - but that doesn't do the trick.

Any help would be most appreciated.

Here is some info that you may be able to utilize.

The Purpose of the Boot.ini File in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;314081
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HOW TO: Edit the Boot.ini File in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;289022
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HOW TO: Create a Boot Disk for an NTFS or FAT Partition in Windows XP

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;305595
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How to make a boot.ini file:
Open NOTEPAD,
then copy the required text from the article,
then SAVE AS...
name file as BOOT.INI
save boot.ini onto a BLANK floppy.

rcayers,

I have the same set-up but what i did was get one drive working perfectly with all drivers and updates then i used Norton Ghost to mirror it on to the other drive. Now if my main drive dies all i have to do is switch the jumpers and i'm back in business.

hope this helps! ;o)

ciao,
wired