Make Dual Boot XP by Cloning Drive? Or Conflicts?

[123post]

Hi,

Can I pull a single Win XP Pro SP3 drive put of a PC. Hardware clone the drive (external SATA disk duplicator). Then pop both drives back into the same PC- and automatically be presented with the choices expected for a working dual boot system?

Or would there some sort of C: drive Volume ID problem or conflict that would not self-resolve?

Cloning seems easier than twice installing and updating and updating and updating (as per http://support.microsoft.com/kb/306559 ).

I suppose a workaround might be to only keep one drive at a time physically connected.

Thanks. (Have been much more familiar with Mac file systems/volumes/boot etc. than Windows - so far.)

 

[PhilFrisbie]

No, you cannot clone a Windows installation to a second drive because Windows has the full path to system components saved hundreds of times in the Registry.

 

[Hawkeye22]

You might not get a dual/mutliboot menu presented from the boot loader, but you may be able to use your bios's boot device option at startup. Some boards show a F12-Boot device or something similar on screen just before loading windows. This isn't a true multiboot if that's what you want to call it, but I don't see why that wouldn't work. It's basically the same as going into the bios and changing your boot device.

 

[123post]

Thanks for the info. I can see why it's not as straightforward.

 

[123post]

Best answer selected by 123post.