2 xp installations on 1 hdd

ahoy

i'm trying to set this up for a buddy so he can have pro tools installed on a partition that he'd never have to reformat, as it would be used solely for the pro tools (it's a pain to install on pc). then have the other partition for the windows that would need the reformat more ofter. it actually sounds like a decent idea, have one stripped down windows just for games, then the other with all of the hotfixes, addonpacks and other goodies one can find here and at RyanVM's forums.

anyway, my problems arise after installing xp onto the second partition. twice i've tried, and each time i've had to boot cmdcons and fix the boot.ini cuz the second install messes it up. then when i try to boot the 2nd partition to start the winnt32 part of the xp setup, the install has all kinds of errors, i remember seeing a bsod about winsrv, something else too i can't recall.

would it be easier to boot into windows off the 1st partition, then run winnt32.exe off the xp image with some parameters? perhaps something like this?

x:\i386\winnt32.exe /cmd:cmdlines.txt /noreboot /syspart:D: /tempdrive:D: /unattend

i've never tried the syspart before, and when it goes to the install screen i get a sinking feeling in my stomach and get visions of his computer blowing up....which would be awesome to see, but troublesome nonetheless.

any tips you can throw at me would be muchly appreciated.