I wanted to find out how to modify the boot.ini file so that i can boot to XP home on a differnet fixed disk, it is my friends but i am unable to boot to it, any help would be appreciated, thank you.

hi, in the boot.ini file u have, it gives the location of your partition your OS is installed 2, u can copy that & change the numbers for the other drive so it could/should work

Boot.ini is quite simple, here is an example:

[Boot Loader] ::This is the title of the 1st section
Timeout=5     ::This is the timeout before default item is loaded
Default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT ::This is the default item
[Operating Systems] ::This is the title of the 2nd section
::Following are actual entries
::First part is the arc path to the partition
::Second part (after the = sign) is the text you see followed by OPTIONS
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2k 1st disk 1st partition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Win2k 1st disk 2nd partition" /fastdetect 
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(3)\WINNT="Win2k 1st disk 3rd partition" /fastdetect
:: and so on...
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Win2k 2nd disk 1st partition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Win2k 2nd disk 2nd partition" /fastdetect
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(3)\WINNT="Win2k 2nd disk 3rd partition" /fastdetect
:: and so on...

Here is the complete reference to arc paths:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?...b;en-us;q102873

Here is the complete reference to OPTIONS:

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/info/bootini.shtml

Here is a good GUI editor for Boot.ini:

http://www.dx21.com/SOFTWARE/Dx21/ViewItem...I=2&SI=2&OID=14

Here is the "MAGIC" program that lets you repair Boot.ini, the bootsector of the drive and many more:

http://www.winimage.com/bootpart.htm

jaclaz

Too bad I didn't have this information when I was looking for it several months ago, thanks for the info...